Orville & Wilbur's living quarters

Dear Jake & Amelia,
We drove south in drizzling rain. As we crossed the causeway to the Outer Banks in North Carolina, the skies cleared. We stopped at Kill Devils Hill, the site of the first successful powered flight, near Kitty Hawk. A cold front was blowing through, chasing the rain in front of it. The winds were 25 mph. On the day of the first flight, they were 27. Standing on the airstrip with the wind blowing was quite thrilling. 

Orville and Wilbur Wright picked this site after writing to the National Weather Service  requesting locations with strong, constant winds. Although Kitty Hawk was 6th, it was chosen because a train ran from Dayton, Ohio, home of the Wright Cycle Company, to nearby Elizabeth City. The site was sandy, good for soft crash landings, and remote. The brothers could experiment without the public commenting on their odd desire to fly. They built a hanger and workshop next to their airstrip. Living quarters were in the workshop, and looked surprisingly comfortable with kitchen, dining table, china and linens. They slept in burlap slings hung from the rafters. They came here for three years, first learning to control the flight of a large glider-like kite. Next they experimented with a manned glider, and finally, in 1903, a powered machine. They had learned to control the pitch, roll and yaw of their aircraft.

Later that night we had the choice of eating at an upscale expensive restaurant or a comfortable, inexpensive watering hole full of local color. We chose the hangout. Their T-shirt logo was a working fish. On one wall was a half-scale mural of General Mitchell's 1917 Spad XI. On the other, photos of trophy fish. Behind us was a pool table. Old time blues blared. We warmed up by eating surprising good French Onion soup. All the talk was of sport fishing. They had canceled their  charters that day because of the high winds, but the food was good and no one cared.

Nancy & Peter

Air strip at Big Kill Devil Hill

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