June 3rd, 2019
This site has been on my radar for quite a while. The first manned powered flight. Wow, where would we be now without powered flight. I definitely wouldn’t be able to travel as much as I do and the world would not be s small as it now seems.
Wilbur and Orville Wright were American inventors and pioneers of aviation. In 1903 the Wright brothers achieved the first powered, sustained and controlled airplane flight; they surpassed their own milestone two years later when they built and flew the first fully practical airplane.
The Wright Brothers National Memorial is on the northern end of the Outer Banks in North Carolina. It is a short drive from Roanoke Island and the Fort Raleigh Historical Site. So it is quite easy to visit both of these sites on the same day.
It is $10 admission fee per person to enter the Historical Site but it is well worth the price as there is a wealth of information and displays.
When we first arrived we drove to the other side of the giant sand dune memorial. We parked and took photos posing with the bronze Wright Brothers and their plane and then headed up the hill for a closer look at the Memorial.
The monument is a huge granite structure and the view from the top was amazing. You could see up and down the coastline. It was very windy, I could see why the Wright Brothers chose this spot for their flight tests..
The Visitors Center is very informative and guides you through the steps it took to achieve that first flight. Outside of the museum there are rocks marking where the series of first flights took off and where they landed. The center has a full replica of the plane that made the first flight. The original plane is in the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC. There are many interactive exhibits to keep children and adults entertained for hours. I would set aside at least 2 or 3 hours to see this Historical Site.
Great pictures and very interesting commentary!