The Wright Brothers' First Flight: Twelve Seconds on a Windy Beach

On a cold, windy morning in December 1903, on the sand dunes near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville Wright lay flat on the wing of a homemade machine and flew for twelve seconds. It was the first powered, controlled flight of an aeroplane, and only a handful of people saw it.

Wilbur and Orville Wright were bicycle makers from Dayton, Ohio, with no university degrees and no government money. This episode follows how they solved the problem of flight with kites, gliders and a wind tunnel of their own, what happened on that windy beach, and why much of the world took years to believe them. We also sort the record from the legend, including the long feud that kept their aeroplane out of America's national museum.

Created with the assistance of AI, using an AI model of the host's voice, and checked against the historical record.