Lifting Each Other Up: The Wright Brothers’ Perseverance and Sibling Collaboration
Visiting Kitty Hawk brought the story of the Wright brothers to life for our family. Walking down the same sandy stretch where Orville and Wilbur achieved the first powered flight, we could imagine their excitement and determination. Running the distances of the first four flights helped us appreciate how they changed the world forever. Carolina and James loved touching the metal model of the Flyer near the monument, asking questions to understand how humans fulfilled time immemorial dreams to take flight. The wind whipped across the dunes, and when we ran, we felt its power pushing us, the same gusts that helped the brothers’ plane stay aloft. We ran faster than their first flight, which barely reached 10 miles per hour relative to the ground—a humbling reminder of how they used the wind to create lift with minimal ground speed.
Arriving at the landing point of their fourth and final flight of the day—reaching 852 linear feet—made us wonder why only four flights? Their success that day in December 1903 was bittersweet. After completing four flights, the Flyer was caught by a strong gust of wind and badly damaged. The brothers packed it away and had to wait until the next year to try again. It’s incredible to think about their patience and persistence. Each year, they built and tested their planes in Ohio, carefully disassembling them, packing them into crates, and shipping them by train and boat to Kitty Hawk. Once on the barrier islands of North Carolina, they reconstructed everything piece by piece. This methodical process, repeated year after year, speaks to their resilience and ability to see setbacks as part of the journey.
Orville and Wilbur’s partnership was the key to their success. Orville’s creativity sparked ideas like wing-warping, inspired by twisting a cardboard box, while Wilbur’s steady, methodical nature refined those ideas into working solutions. Together, they built and rebuilt, improving their designs with every setback or success. Their choice of Kitty Hawk—selected after careful research for its steady winds, soft sand, and isolation—gave them the space they needed to work without distraction. Watching our kids run together and help each other understand the exhibits reminded me of the Wrights’ ability to lean on one another for encouragement, challenges, and breakthroughs.
Touching the model of the Flyer and imagining the brothers’ first short flights also brought up discussions about perseverance. It wasn’t easy for the Wrights to convince others they had succeeded. Their work went largely unnoticed for years, even after the first flight in 1903. It took public demonstrations in Europe and to the US Army and extensive legal battles to secure their place in history. The kids asked questions about how people reacted when they finally saw the plane fly, and we talked about how being first doesn’t always mean immediate recognition.
What stayed with me most was how the brothers’ passion for inventing drove them forward. They eventually commercialized their plane, but running a company wasn’t what excited them. They loved solving problems, not scaling a business for wealth. After years of pushing boundaries, they stepped back, satisfied with having forever changed how humans experience the world.
Running those distances with the wind in our faces helped us connect with the Wright brothers’ journey in a way no history book ever could. Their story isn’t just about being the first to fly—it’s about resilience, teamwork, and how siblings growing up in a small American town can change the world forever.
Here’s a video of our visit.
