Kill Devil Hills

Wright Brothers National Memorial, located in Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina, commemorates the first successful, sustained, powered flights in a heavier-than-air machine by the Wright Brothers on December 17, 1903. It was dedicated November 14, 1932, on a day not much unlike the conditions during their famous flight tests here... stormy and windy. Orville Wright was the main guest of honor at the ceremony (Wilbur died 20 years earlier from typhoid fever).

On July 20, 1969, a scant 65 years after that first flight, mankind first stepped on that moon up there. While that was achieved with rockets, it could not have been done without a thorough knowledge of controlled flight... I wonder what Orville and Wilbur would have thought of that?

My mom's dad and my dad both worked for NASA. Dad repaired computers at NASA's Langley Research Center in Hampton, Virginia, back in that day. Before Neil Armstrong took that "one small step" on the moon, he was walking around that facility suspended on a system of slings and cables to experience how the Moon's gravity might affect him. The Apollo astronauts also practiced what it might be like to land on the Moon there using the 240 foot-tall Lunar Lander Research Facility... a lunar lander simulator. Of course, actually landing on the Moon presented problems that engineers never dreamed of for the simulator... Apollo 11's landing of the Eagle nearly wasn't. A switch that had a piece of tin/lead solder floating around within it in zero gravity kept shorting contacts that lit an indicator to abort the landing... after a terse discussion with Mission Control concerning Eagle's flightworthiness, Buzz Aldrin continued descent, and manned flight history was made yet again. Aboard the Eagle that day, along with the astronauts, was a piece of wood and some fabric from the original Wright Flyer... from Kittyhawk to Tranquility Base and back again, and you can see it here at the Visitor's Center.

On the 21st of this month, I'll enjoy what the Wright's creativity brought to this world on a flight aboard a restored vintage World War II B-25 Mitchell bomber at the Winston-Salem Air Show... I might even get a picture or two! Hope to see you there.