Wright Flyer (1903)

The 1903 Wright Flyer marks the beginning of powered, controlled, heavier-than-air flight. Built by Wilbur and Orville Wright after years of glider experiments, wind-tunnel testing and control research, it made four flights near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on 17 December 1903.

The Flyer was fragile, strange-looking and barely powerful, but its importance was revolutionary. The Wrights’ key achievement was not simply getting airborne; it was solving control through wing-warping, a forward elevator and rudder coordination. Every powered aircraft that followed belongs, in some way, to the path opened by this machine.