Wilbur and Orville Wright were two brothers from the heartland of America with a vision as sweeping as the sky and a practicality as down-to-earth as the Wright Cycle Co., the bicycle business they founded in Dayton, Ohio, in 1892. But while there were countless bicycle shops in turn-of-the-century America, in only one were wings being built as well as wheels. When the Wright brothers finally realized their vision of powered human flight in 1903, they made the world a forever smaller place. This all took place in Kitty Hawk, N. C.
While the brothers' bicycle business paid the bills, it was Wilbur's abiding dream of building a full-size flying machine that inspired their work. For many years, he once said, he had been "afflicted with the belief that flight is possible." The reality of that obsession was a lonely quest for the brothers in the workroom behind their bike shop, plotting to defy gravity and conquer the wind. Yet that obsessive kind of world-changing belief is a force that drives you to solve a problem, to find the breakthrough. It was a force that led the Wright brothers to invent, single-handedly, each of the technologies they needed to pursue their dream.
This was the Wright Brothers' bicycle company.  This was the birthplace of modern airplane design.  This was the place where they created the plane they flew known as the Kitty Hawk.
These were the wing designs drawn by the Wrights' friend and expert advisor, Octave Chanute.  The wing designs that are drawn here are actually the side view of an animal's wing.  The Wrights used a mix of the Buzzard shape (2nd from top) and the Herring Bull (Bottom).
The sands of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina were the perfect place for flight trials.  Here they are flying their homemade glider as a kite.

This picture of the Kitty Hawk shows the launching procedure for gliding.  Orville is piloting and Wilber is on the left.  They had another person help to launch the Kitty Hawk.  This person's name was the Kitty Hawk Man.
On December 17, 1903 at 10:35 in the morning, Orville took off to make the world's first flight in a power driven, heavier-than-air machine.
Despite the high winds and an unproven flying machine, Wilber swore that their experiments in the air weren't dangerous.
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