I had spent half my lifetime trying to find my way here. There were always rationales—no money, no time, job restrictions, obligations on either end of the trip—the list was endless.
I am a Canadian teacher who taught a mandatory flight unit every year. Sometimes I taught the “Wilbur and Orville” unit. Sometimes I taught the “Alexander Graham Bell-Bras D’Or Lake, Nova Scotia” story, but usually both. Each year the flight unit culminated with a written test and a glider contest, on school time—probably unheard of in today’s highly structured school day.
Some students made the standard paper airplanes with a sheet of note paper moments before the competition. Others, with their fathers, worked every night at the kitchen table for three weeks before the event, laboring over the effect of lift and drag on balsa wood wings.
On the day of the competition I selected several categories in which students could qualify and win prizes for each category—greatest distance (paper airplanes with paper clips on the nose usually excelled); greatest altitude; greatest launch; best structure; and greatest example of utilizing skill in construction.
On the afternoon of the flight, the schoolyard filled with other classes as they watched our dramatic event. They clapped and cheered and hollered, as if they were attending an airshow. And in September of next year some of the kids would ask to be in my class because “we can make paper airplanes,” temporarily blinded to suffering 10 months under my tutelage.
Today, no longer teaching, I have the opportunity of frequently flying with my husband-pilot, Jim, in our Piper Comanche PA–24. This morning is one of those flights.
We are at the Williamsburg-Jamestown Airport in Virginia and have set our course for First Flight Airport in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. We have waited a lifetime for this opportunity.
The ground drops away as we climb out to 1,500 feet and level off at 2,000 feet. The landscape below is dotted with swimming pools, then marshes, then rivulets, and then streams slicing through wetland terrain. Below us and off to the east are the naval freighters at anchor off the coast. Once we clear Norfolk airspace, we bank left to follow the shoreline to the Outer Banks. Below us lies man’s worship to the pursuit of leisure—massive homes each occupying a postage stamp of sand, sea grass, and diminishing dunes. Simulated weathered, gray-shingled real estate conflicts with mankind’s efforts to save the turtle, save the marshes, save the wetlands, save the dunes, save the ocean, and save whatever else does not yet have a foundation or steering committee. As we cut inland we know that soon, like a jewel beneath our wings, First Flight Airport awaits us. North of the airport, a left-hand pattern puts us downwind to Runway 2.
The 3,000-foot runway rises to meet us. The nosewheel squeals as we touch down and taxi to the visitor center, cut the engine, and set the chocks, grabbing our cooler and lunch.
A 60-foot granite monument stands alone atop a 90-foot dune, a beckoning sentinel in a brilliant cerulean October sky, a tribute to two Americans who had a dream 112 years ago.
Inscribed in uppercase letters along the base of the memorial tower are the phrases, “In commemoration of the conquest of the air by the brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright. Conceived by genius, achieved by dauntless resolution, and unconquerable faith.”
Despite the warm day, even the most jaded of tourists will admit to experiencing a spine-tingling sensation standing there in the shadow of greatness.
Wilbur and Orville were generous in their credit. Captured in word and immortalized in bronze are W.C. Brinkley, a lumberman; Adam Etheridge, a member of the U.S. Life Saving Service; Willis Dough, who assisted in several flights; John T. Daniels, the photographer who captured the shot seen around the world; and Johnny Moore, the 16-year-old witness to the first flights who lived his whole life on the Outer Banks as a hunting and fishing guide.
The commemoration makes clear that this was a community project. The Wright brothers were from Ohio. They needed friends, members of the community to help them achieve their goals. From the post office clerk to the telegrapher and various townspeople, friends and neighbors assisted where they could and where needed.
The twenty-fifth anniversary of the Wright brothers’ first flight was celebrated by 3,000 people laying this cornerstone monument. By the centennial celebration more than 120,000 people swelled throughout the area, surging up the dune to pay homage.
We could have spent hours there, but as every pilot knows, weather is first consideration. A front was rolling in and we had planned to explore the North Carolina coastline farther to the south before the return home. Before we left, Jim drew my attention to framed signage:
Wright Brothers National Memorial Pilot Facility
A gift from the members of the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association
Ensuring Aviation’s Future
Like others before us, we had come to see aviation’s birthplace—we need to keep the crowds coming to ensure aviation’s future for all.
Anne Marie Beattie is a retired schoolteacher and enthusiastic right seater with her pilot-husband Jim.
Illustration by David Vogin