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The Wright Brothers Wilbur Wright, born in 1867, was born in Millville, Indiana. Orville Wright, born in 1871, was born in Dayton, Ohio. They both became interested in flying when they started to play with toy planes as young boys. In the late 1800’s Orville and Wilbur built a printing press and started to publish their own papers that started off weekly then became so popular they started to publish daily. The brothers opened their own bicycle store in 1892 and within 4 years produced their own brand. After seeing many attempts at flight, the Wright brothers began to experiment with their own inventions. Flying in Ohio did not work for the brothers because there was not that much wind. During the early 1900’s the brothers moved to Kitty Hawk, North Carolina and flew kites and gliders. The brothers made their first Hang Glider in 1900. They made many different Gliders because they had to keep going back to fix the flaws. The brothers also spent a great deal of time observing birds and how they flew They noticed that birds would change the look of their wings and introduced this concept to their inventions. The first manned flight occurred on December 17, 1903. This was the first piloted flight in history. On November 9, 1904 the Flyer ll was flown by Wilbur and lasted more than five minutes. The Wright Brothers were the first to successfully fly. The brothers also added engines to their planes to help power them and help them stay in the air for longer. Today their planes hang in the Smithsonian museum in Washington D.C. Orville Wright died January 30, 1948 at the age of 76 Wilbur Wright died May 30, 1912 at the age of 45 The plane was Designed and built by the Wright brothers, they flew it four times on December 17, 1903, near Kill Devil Hills, about 4 miles south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The Wright brothers inaugurated the aerial age with the world's first successful flights of a powered heavier-than-air flying machine. The Wright Flyer was the product of a sophisticated four-year program of research and development conducted by Wilbur and Orville Wright beginning in 1899. After building and testing three full-sized gliders, the Wrights' first powered airplane on December 17, 1903, making a 12-second flight, traveling 120ft, with Orville piloting. The wing area of their glider is 305 square feet, the length is 16feet 1 inch, the height is 8 feet and it weight 117 pounds. The first fully controllable aircraft The poor lift performance of their 1900 glider made the Wright brothers question, but not abandon, the aerodynamic data and equations they had relied upon. To increase lift on their next glider, they simply increased the size of the wings and the curvature of the airfoil. They returned to Kitty Hawk in 1901 to test the new glider. The results were discouraging. Although more and longer free glides were made than in the previous year, the new glider performed worse than the 1900 craft. It still suffered from lack of lift and now had control problems as well. After modifying the glider’s rudder, the Wrights now had a true three-dimensional system of control. This three-axis control system was their single most important design breakthrough, and was the central aspect of the flying machine patent they later obtained. In its final form, the 1902 Wright glider was the world’s first fully controllable aircraft. Compared to their previous gliders, the Wrights’ 1902 glider had a much thinner airfoil and longer and narrower wings, which their wind tunnel tests had shown to be more efficient. To improve lateral control, they added a fixed vertical rudder to the rear of the glider. They retained the reliable forward elevator for pitch control but made it elliptical in shape. On October 2, 1902 Wilbur Wright said, “Our new machine is a very great improvement over anything…anyone has built. Everything is so much more satisfactory that we now believe that the flying problem is really nearing its solution.”