17th December: First powered flight

On Thursday December 17, 1903, at 10:35am, Orville Wright piloted the first powered plane. 10 things you might not know about the Wright Brothers and their first flight.

1. Prior to this historic date, they had already flown more than 700 times with a glider. This flight was different as they were using an engine for the first time.
2. The brothers' day job was running a Bicycle repair shop. The flyer and its engine were built in the shop's workshop.
3. Their father once said, “It is impossible for men in the future to fly like birds. Flying is reserved for the angels. Do not mention that again lest you be guilty of blasphemy.” However, he changed his tune in time, and even flew with Orville in 1910, calling out, "Higher, Orville, Higher!"
4. The plane had a wingspan of 40.3 feet. The twelve horsepower engine weighed 180 lb (82 kg) which made the plane weigh a total of 605 lb (274 kg).
5. The flight lasted 12 seconds and covered 120 feet (less than the wingspan of a Boeing 747). They clocked up a speed of only 6.8 miles per hour (10.9 km/h) over the ground, and an altitude of about 10 feet (3.0 m) above the ground.
6. Five other people witnessed the flight: Adam Etheridge, John T. Daniels (who took the famous "first flight" photo) and Will Dough, all of the U.S. government coastal lifesaving crew; area businessman W.C. Brinkley; and Johnny Moore, a local teenager. Daniels had never seen a camera before that day, and his famous photograph almost wasn't taken because he was so excited about the flying machine.
7. Orville Wright made the first ever flight - because he won a coin toss to decide which brother would attempt it first. He wrote in his diary that he found the rudder difficult to control in flight.
8. While this is a highly significant event to us, the press of the day were seriously underwhelmed. The local paper weren't interested in covering it at all, and the one paper in Virginia which did publish an article got many of the facts wrong, and then syndicated the article. The Wright Brothers had to issue their own factually correct statement in January.
9. The brothers made another three flights that day, but as they carried their flyer back after the fourth flight, it was flipped over by high winds and damaged so badly that it never flew again.
10. There is a controversy around whether the Wright Brothers really did make the first powered flight. In 2013, Jane's All the World's Aircraft claimed that aviation pioneer Gustave Whitehead made first successful powered flight in 1901, beating the Wright Brothers by more than two years.