KITTY HAWK, NC 5/19/2011

After staying a couple nights in Waves, NC at Camp Hatteras we left to tour a couple places as we headed west towards Raleigh, NC.  Our first stop was a place Wayne had longed to visit since childhood and in fifth grade he read a book about Orville and Wilbur Wright.....Kitty Hawk, and the place of Orville and Wilbur Wright's first flight.  When we toured the Smithsonian in Washington DC and we saw the actual plane they had built and flew, his appetite to see the actual place it happened was increased.  Today we were there!
In the Visitor's Center they had a full size replica of the glider that they used to perfect wing design, manuverability and stability that you could actually get up close to and see how it was made.  It was amazing!!

  They had the place where the first man powered flight took place well marked out with stones marking the distance of the first 4 flights made by their gas engine powered, propeller driven, man occupied plane.  It was awe inspiring to walk along those places.  The distance covered was not so impressive, but the fact that they proved that man could take off, fly and land under their own power!

 They used a track as a skid as a launch pad.

 For years, Wayne has seen pictures of this monument on top of the hill in Kitty Hawk where they practiced and perfected their gliders, before they actually took off on flat land below the hill to fly under their own power.  And here we stood actually there, actually in that place in history of man's first flight.

 And then to actually stand on the monument.  It was awe inspiring.

 This is a model of one of the kites they constructed to practice with and perfect wing design.  It was amazing how intelligent these men were!!!  They were actually able to figure out mathmatically the proper wing design needed to lift man off the earth!

Here stands a satisfied and happy man!