The Wight brothers, Orville and Wilbur, working from their bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio, USA, designed and built the first successful, heavier-than-air, powered and controlled airplane, the Wright Flyer. They assembled the plane close to the Atlantic beach near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina and made the first four flights on 17 December 1903. The first flight with Orville at the controls lasted 12 seconds and covered 37 meters (120 ‘). The brothers took turns as pilots and on the fourth flight Wilbur flew the plane for 59 seconds over a distance of 260meters (852 ‘).
The pilots managed the Flyer with a few very simple controls. Pitch was effected by a lever in the pilot’s left hand connected by pulleys to the front mounted elevators. Yaw was managed by the pilot shifting his hips right or left in a cradle mounted on the lower wing. This cradle was, in turn, wired to the rear wing tips for wing warping and to the rudder.
The Flyer had a wingspan of 12.3 meters (40’ 4”). It had an empty weight of 274 Kg (604 lbs). Power was provided by the Wright designed and built 3.3 L, four cylinder, horizontal twelve H.P. gasoline engine weighing 81.6 Kg (180 lbs). The light weight was achieved by casting the block in aluminium instead of iron. For more details on the operation and engineering of the Flyer, have a look at these web sites: Wikipedia, Engineering Breakthroughs, Rigging Controls
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