FlightGlobal.com
Home
Premium
Archive
Video
Images
Forum
Atlas
Blogs
Jobs
Shop
RSS
Email Newsletters
You are in:
Home
Aviation History
1961
1961 - 1342.PDF
446 TTie Wright brothers' /iv/'ng quorters at Kitty Hawk have been recon- structed in detail for posterity. Here is the interior VISITING KITTY HAWK... found ourselves on a latfge, star-shaped terrace paved withcobblestones. ' &••/ y We stopped;to look»around. jHalf a mile or more to the east wasthe sea vista of white breake&.at the edge of the broad and blue Atlantic. Along the coastline %ere stretches a long line of summerhomes facing the highway. (Bo the distant south and west are hills and sand dunes, together with stretches of landlocked water.To the north of the island lies a dim, wooded horizon. Then, looking north, we saw something that made us blink.Grey and lonely at the edge of a large field were two weather- beaten shacks, vaguely resembling airplane hangars. Yes, theNational Park Service has reconstructed in painstaking detail the original Wright camp of 1903! And nearby is a new museum build-ing. The Memorial Shaft has become so much the focal centre of this famous area that the general Press has concentrated on it—andso most aviation enthusiasts do not even realize how carefully the Birthplace of Flight has been preserved. And now, looking at the actual Memorial Shaft from its base,we see something that seldom shows up in panoramic photographs •—a handsome metal door in the tower's base. From a distance,and in photographs, the tower looks as if it might be made of solid granite. But it isn't. It is hollow, and when we steppedthrough the door we found ourselves in a small but dignified lobby. A courteous Park Service attendant in olive-coloured uniformgreets visitors and asks them to sign the guest register. Descrip- tive pamphlets are given to each visitor, and there are postcardsand books on display. A spiral staircase winds up inside the shaft, so we started up.Everything inside the shaftway is painted a utilitarian silver. Half way up there is a rotunda, in the centre of which is a hand-some metal plaque showing the world and all the famous long- distance flights made from 1903 to 1928. It is quite amazing tp,bereminded of the great strides flying men made in twenty-five years: the map is almost completely criss-crossed by lines indicating theroutes of many flights across continents and oceans. One's feeling of respect for the pioneering airman's courage and initiativedeepens immensely. At the top of the stairs a small door opens onto a rather smallobservation balcony just below the beacon atop the sixty-foot tower. Before our eyes lay the northern slope of Kill Devil Hill,on which over 1,000 gliding flights were made prior to the develop- ment of the power-driven airplane. In 1903 nothing but a dune ofshifting sand, the hill has been safely and permanently anchored by the planting of special grass and shrubs. Perhaps a third of amile north of the tower huddle the two wooden sheds and, having taken in the view from the observation balcony, we were eager tosee them at first hand. A winding road leads up to the reconstructed 1903 camp and atonce you see something else which escapes attention in most photographs—a series of stones marking the actual site of thehistoric first flights of December 17, 1903. Set on a small earthen mound is one large boulder bearing a bronze tablet. From the edgesof the mound project crude wooden rails, capped with strap iron. FLIGHT, 14 September 1961 This is the actual starting point of the first flights and as we lookecat the rails we experienced a very real thrill, for we were standing exactly where Orville and Wilbur Wright set up their "Flyer" antcatapulted it into the air. This boulder and its tablet were erected in 1929 by the NationaAeronautic Association. And in a straight line marching north from it are four numbered tablets showing where each of tkDecember 17 flights ended. The first is a scant 120ft from the boulder, or about as far as a Piper Cub might bounce in a pooilanding. The other three are 195, 200 and 852ft away and convince one that the frail biplane really accomplished the miracle of flight. Then we took a close look at the reconstructed sheds. One.closest to the boulder and starting track, is the hangar building. Long and narrow, its ends are hinged at the top so that they wouldswing up and allow the aircraft to be pushed out of either end on its launching carriage. Made of rough, weatherbeaten and irreg-ularly-overlapped boards, the shed has a ground-level wooden floor. The roof is covered with tarpaper, and from its ridgepoleprojects a rod supporting a simple, vane-like wind direction indi- cator. Iron hinges on the doors are rusty and, all-in-all, one sensesthe kind of rustic and Spartan atmosphere in which great indi- vidual accomplishments seem often to be born. Behind the hangar an iron water pump has been driven into theground. It reminds one that people lived and worked here, and prepares one for the other building, marking the Wrights' combinedliving quarters and workshop. At the southern end of this crude shed are simple, camp-like living quarters. A rough table at oneside holds a few books and papers. On the other side is a heating stove fashioned from a carbide can, a kerosine stove of the sheet-metal, mail-order type, and simple but neat shelves of common board for tableware and provisions. One's eye wanders up to theopen rafters and the beds become apparent—they are nothing but hammocks made of pieces of old rug nailed between beams up nearthe roof boards! A short distance east of the wooden sheds is a new buildingwhich is a combination museum and administration office. It houses a duplicate of the 1902 glider and parts of the originalbiplane and its engine. A duplicate of the actual powered aircraft was under construction and was shortly due to join the display,along with an increasing quantity of photographs, original Wright tools and similar mementoes. The National Park Service hopes intime to be able to make a light-aircraft flight strip on some of the vacant land within the reservation, for the nearest airport at presentis several miles south at Manteo. Well, that was it. We had a much better idea of the present-dayappearance of aviation's birthplace. Under the conscientious guardianship of the National Park Service, Kill Devil Hill and theFirst Flight Grounds are being protected, preserved and improved. It is a good thing, for obviously the whole historic area might havebeen built over with summer cottages and obliterated. Leaving Kitty Hawk, we drove a tedious 75 miles north-west toNorfolk, Va, crossing another long wooden bridge over Albemarle Sound at one of its narrower points and traversing miles of flat,open farmland. Once again the remoteness and utter incongruity of Kitty Hawk as a work-site for a pair of unknown experimenterswas impressed upon us. But we had seen tangible proof that Orville and Wilbur Wright really did travel to that lonely seacoasthamlet to work their miracle! This ten-ton granite boulder, erected by the National Aeronautical Association in 1928, marks the take-off point of the epoch-making flights of December 17, !903
Sign up to
Flight Digital Magazine
Flight Print Magazine
Airline Business Magazine
E-newsletters
RSS
Events
