"In answering I would say that you would find here nearly any type of ground you could wish; you could, for instance, get a stretch of sandy land 1 mile by five with a bare hill in the center 80 feet high, not a tree or bush anywhere to break the evenness of the wind current. This in my opinion would be a fine place; our winds are always steady, generally, from 10 to 20 miles velocity per hour."
Wilbur Wright probably had the letter containing those words in his pocket when he stepped ashore in Kitty Hawk Village on the afternoon of September 13, 1900. The letter's author, a local fisherman and Dare County Commissioner named Captain Bill Tate, had written to the Wright Brothers a month before in response to a request from the Wrights concerning local weather and environmental conditions. The bothers from Ohio were looking for a location to test their theories of flight. But they also needed soft ground, open space, and a steady wind. The Outer Banks of North Carolina certainly fit the bill on all four counts.
When Wilbur Wright arrived that September afternoon, he went directly to Captain Tate's home in the village nestled in the woods along the Albemarle Sound. There, he awaited the arrival of his brother, Orville, who was two weeks behind him with the gear and glider. On September 28, the brothers left the village and pitched a tent on the high dune ridge that separated the village from the open beach.
In 1900, there was very little vegetation on the Outer Banks. The barrier island from Nags Head to the Virginia line was characterized by a Sahara-like landscape, with swirling sand and towering dunes that reached over 100 feet in the air. Coupled with the almost constant breeze and privacy from prying eyes, the environment was perfect for the Wrights as they spent that autumn testing their glider.
The Wright Brothers were pure inventors. Their business was bicycle-making, and they ran a successful shop in Dayton, Ohio. But they were also tinkerers, and lately, the idea of flight had captured their analytical imaginations. Before arriving in Kitty Hawk, they read everything they could get their hands on about man's attempts to fly, which up to that point had resulted in failure and in some cases, death. They had formulated their own theories, which involved a wing warping system that was designed to give the glider more stability in the air. By the end of October, they were ready to return to Dayton for the winter, study the results, and make adjustments before returning to Kitty Hawk the following spring.
The following June, they constructed a second glider that incorporated their findings and returned to the Outer Banks, this time setting up a more permanent camp at the base of Kill Devil Hill, about four miles south of Kitty Hawk. The new glider didn't work as planned, and the brothers spent many hours watching seabirds in flight as they searched for the solution to their aerodynamic conundrum. At the end of August, after dozens of tests, they decided that their glider needed a stabilizing vertical tail, and they returned to Dayton for the winter. Once home, they constructed a wind tunnel to test, in miniature, their thoughts on wing curvature and lift.
In September 1902, they returned to the Outer Banks, this time with a much-improved glider featuring the vertical tail and incorporating the new aerodynamics. Their tests were exciting. The glider remained aloft longer than any in history and soared more than 600 feet. When they added a movable rudder to the tail, the Wright Brothers stood on the precipice of unlocking the secrets of flight.
Only one more step remained. Man had glided in an aircraft before, that much had been done. But the one feat that had not been achieved was what the Wrights hoped: an aircraft that began its flight from a point higher or as high as the ending point. For that, a mechanical means of locomotion was needed. So in the winter of 1902, the Wrights set about building aluminum gas-powered engine capable of delivering about 12 horsepower that would power two propellers. The Wright's new aircraft had all the elements of today's planes.
In September 1903, they returned to Kitty Hawk. By now, they had become a welcome -if somewhat odd- addition to the local community, and each day the Wrights tested their aircraft, two or three local folks would turn out to help and watch the experiments. On December 14, they were finally ready to fly their new contraption. They had constructed a single rail laid into the sand, which would serve as the "runway". Wilbur climbed aboard, cranked the engine, and began to roll down the rail. The plane's nose lifted into the air-and the engine stalled, dropping the plane into the soft sand.
The brothers worked quickly to repair the plane. It was frigid on the Banks, and they were anxious to return to Dayton for Christmas. Three days later, on December 17, they rolled the plane out of the work shed and hoisted the signal flag that served as notification to the locals that flying was going on that day.Several members of the nearby lifesaving station came over to Kill Devil Hill to watch.
The wind was a brisk 21 miles per hour out of the northeast. At 10:35 AM, Orville boarded the craft and started the engine. Wilbur ran alongside the plane as it began to slowly roll down the track into the wind, holding the wing tip for balance. And then, in Orville's words, the plane "lifted from the track just as it was entering on the fourth rail. Mr. Daniels took a picture just as it left the tracks."
That photograph remains the most monumental piece of documentation of mankind's greatest discovery. And thus, for the first time in human history, on a wind-swept beach in North Carolina, man left earth for the first time in a powered flying machine. Orville's first flight lasted only 12 seconds, and he flew only 100 feet. Today, man can fly 10 miles in 12 seconds.
The brothers, however, were ecstatic. That day, they piloted three more flights, with the last and longest being 852 feet in 59 seconds. But as they readied the plane for a fifth run, a gust of wind caught the wings and flipped the aircraft end over end. The 1903 flying season was over. That afternoon, after eating lunch, the brothers hiked over to the Kitty Hawk weather station and sent their now-famous telegraph message which changed the world:
"Success four flights Thursday morning. All against twenty-one mile wind. Started from level with engine power alone. Average speed through air thirty-one miles. Longest 59 seconds. Inform press. Home Christmas. Orville Wright."
The Wrights would make several more successful flights back home in Ohio, while the world was slow to give them the credit they deserved for their achievement. But 30 years later, when the cornerstone of the great monument that now crowns big Kill Devil Hill was laid, Orville Wright was present to claim the Wright Brothers' place in history.
Perhaps no other place on the Outer Banks is as widely known and revered as Kitty Hawk, noted as the location of the Wright Brother's famous first flight. However, the history books are mistaken. The Wright Brothers actually made their flights from the ridges of Kill Devil Hills' sand dunes, five miles south of the village of Kitty Hawk.
When the Wrights first came to the Banks, Kitty Hawk was the primary settlement on the northern end of the barrier island. The Wrights lived in the village with local resident and postmaster Bill Tate while testing their craft. In fact, they built their first glider in the front yard of one resident's home.
On December 17, 1903, when their powered plane left the earth for the first time, they announced their discovery to the world in a telegraph message to their father from the Kitty Hawk Weather Station. Thus, when the world covered the event, it was Kitty Hawk that received the glory.
Many theories surround the origin of this intriguing place name. Perhaps the most fanciful tale involves a destitute hermit who once lived in the woods on the sound side of the barrier island. In desperation, he sold his soul to the Devil in return for a bag of gold. The Devil promised to return one week later to deliver the goods, and in that time, the hermit began to have second thoughts. Legend has it that he devised a plan that would save his soul. He dug a pit in the treacherous quicksand at the base of the sand dune and covered it. On the appointed night, the Devil appeared to collect, and the hermit lured him into the sand pit, where the Devil met his fate.
Other locals tell how the Banker who once inhabited this part of the Banks brewed a horrid brand of rum that was so bad it was rumored to "kill the devil." Etymologists point to the fact that the area is home to a species of shorebird called the killdeer by the early natives. Settlers adopted the name, and eventually it evolved into Kill Devil, with Hills added to the phrase to describe the towering sand dunes nearby.
Regardless, the name appears on maps as early as 1809. A lifesaving station established there in 1870 bore the name, and when the town incorporated in 1953, it adopted the name as well.
