Kittyhawk and after

From 1903 to today, it's remarkable how far aviation has come. On December 17, 1903, at 10:35 a.m., the Wright brothers (Orville at the controls) made the first heavier-than-air, machine-powered flight which lasted 12 seconds and spanned 120 feet. They did what every man and woman has dreamed for centuries … they flew. Yet, not all flights were victorious, on September 17, their aircraft crashed, injuring Orville and his passenger Selfridge. Selfridge later died and was the first person to be killed in a powered airplane. Yet the show went on and Wilbur Wright went to France in August 1908; on December 31, 1908, he completed a 2 hour 20 minute flight which demonstrated full control over his Flyer. The Flyer became the first successful military airplane. It remained in service for around two years and was retired to the Smithsonian Institution where it rests today.

Well-known in the aviation field by this time, Glenn Hammond Curtiss won the first American award, the Scientific American Trophy, for an airplane flight when he flew 5090 ft (1552m) in 1 min 42.5 sec on July 4, 1908. Curtiss also went on to win the first international speed event, at about 47mph (75.6 km/h), on August 28, 1910. He also became the first American to develop and fly a seaplane.

Before World War I, airplane design greatly improved. Pusher biplanes (two-winged airplanes with the engine and propeller behind the wing) were succeeded by tractor biplanes (two-winged airplanes with the engine and propeller in front of the wing). Monoplane designs were rare, and when World War I began, huge biplane bombers with two to four engines were developed.

Also in 1911, the first transcontinental flight across the U.S. was completed by Calbraith P. Rodgers. His flight from New York to California took 3 days, 10 hours, and 14 minutes, and was by a Wright aircraft.

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