Part 5

About 100 yards southwest of the visitor center stand two wooden structures built by the National Park Service in 1953 on the 50th anniversary of the first flight. They are reconstructions of the Wright brothers' 1903 living quarters and hangar based on historical research and photographs of the originals. The furnishings within the living quarters are of the 1902-3 period, and are almost exact duplications of those used by the Wrights.

FIRST FLIGHT GROUNDS.

Less than 100 feet west of the camp is a 10-ton granite memorial boulder placed by the National Aeronautic Association in 1928 on the 25th anniversary of the first flight. The boulder marks the take-off point of the first flight and of the three additional flights made December 17, 1903. A reconstruction of the original single-rail starting track is placed at the north and south sides of the boulder. Four numbered markers north of the boulder designate landing points of the powered flights made on December 17, 1903.

KILL DEVIL HILL.

About a quarter of a mile south of the visitor center lies Kill Devil Hill, used by the Wrights for gliding experiments during the period 1900-1903. The north slope of this hill was also used for the unsuccessful attempt at flight on December 14, 1903. Before the Wright memorial shaft was erected, conservation work was begun in 1929 on the massive 26-acre dune of shifting yellow sand to anchor the 91-foot-high dune by seeding it with special grasses adapted to sandy soil.

WRIGHT MEMORIAL SHAFT.

Atop Kill Devil Hill stands the striking Wright memorial shaft, a triangular pylon 60 feet high, made of gray granite from Mount Airy, N.C. Construction was begun February 4, 1931, and the shaft was dedicated November 19, 1932. Its sides ornamented with outspread wings in bas-relief, the pylon gives to the eye the impression of a gigantic bird about to take off into space. Stairs lead to the top of the shaft and an observation platform which offers a good view of the surrounding country--magnificent dunes, the Atlantic Ocean, Albemarle Sound, and even West Hill, a quarter of a mile west of the shaft, in the direction of the sound. West Hill, the sand dune which was the scene of many of the Wrights' gliding experiments in 1901-3, was stabilized by the National Park Service in 1934 to preserve the historic site.

_Administration_

Wright Brothers National Memorial is administered by the National Park Service, U.S. Department of the Interior. A superintendent, whose address is Kill Devil Hills, N.C., is in immediate charge.

_Glossary_

_Aileron_--A control surface set into or near the trailing edge of an airplane wing, extending, when in the wing, toward the tip and usually within the contour of the wing, and used to control the longitudinal axis of an airplane.

_Airborne_--Of an airplane or other winged craft: Supported entirely by aerodynamic forces, flying.

_Airfoil_--A surface or body, as a wing, propeller blade, rudder, or the like, especially designed to obtain a reaction, as lift or thrust, from the air through which it moves.

_Angle of attack_--The acute angle between the chord of an airfoil, and a line representing the undisturbed relative airflow. Any other acute angle between two reference lines designating the cant of an airfoil relative to oncoming air.

_Aspect ratio_--The ratio between the span of an airfoil and its chord.

_Camber_--The curve of an airfoil section from the leading edge to the trailing edge. Camber is usually expressed as the distance from the chord line to the upper or lower surface of an airfoil.

_Center-of-pressure travel_--The movement, or the amount of movement, of the center of pressure along a chord of an airfoil as the latter is inclined through its normal angles of attack.

_Chord_--An assumed straight-line tangent to the lower surface of an airfoil section at two points, or a straight line between the leading and trailing edges of an airfoil section, or between the ends of the mean line of an airfoil section; the distance between the leading and trailing edges of an airfoil section.

_Drag_--A resistant force exerted in a direction opposite to the direction of motion and parallel to the relative gas or air Stream.

_Dynamic lift_--The lift given an airplane by the aerodynamic force produced from an adequately designed airfoil.

_Glider_--A fixed-wing aircraft having no power plant and constructed so as to glide and soar.

_Gliding_--The art, science, and activity of moving through the air in a glider.

_Heavier-than-air aircraft_--Any aircraft weighing more than the air it displaces.

_Lift_--That component of the total aerodynamic forces acting on an airfoil or on an entire aircraft or winged missile, perpendicular to the relative wind, and exerted, normally, in an upward direction opposing the pull of gravity.

_Lighter-than-air aircraft_--An aircraft that rises and is supported in air by virtue of a contained gas weighing less than the air displaced by the gas.

_Nose dive_--A steep dive by, or in, an aircraft.

_Power plant_--The complete engine or engines in an aircraft, together with propeller or propellers (if any), accessories, fuel and oil tanks and lines, etc.

_Powered aircraft_--An aircraft having one or more engines, as distinguished from a glider.

_Tailspin_--A spin, so named in reference to the characteristic spiral action of the tail when the airplane is in a spin.

_Warp_--To change the shape of something, especially an airplane's wing, by twisting. To give lift or drop to a wing by twisting it at the ends.

_Wind tunnel_--A chamber through which air is forced at controlled velocities, up to several thousand miles an hour, and in which airfoils, airplanes, missiles, scale models of airplanes, or other objects are mounted in order to observe and study the airflow about such objects, as well as the aerodynamic effects upon them.

_Wingspan_--The span of a wing, measured or taken between the tips or outermost extremities of either a single-piece wing or a wing that is separated by other aircraft components.

_Wing-warping_--The action of warping a wing, or a control system for warping the wings at will.

_Yaw_--An angular displacement or motion to the left or right about the vertical axis of an airplane.

_Suggestions for Further Reading_

Gibbs-Smith, C. H., _A History of Flying_. Frederick A. Praeger, New York, 1954.

Kelly, Fred C. (Ed.), _Miracle at Kitty Hawk, the Letters of Wilbur and Orville Wright_. Farrar, Straus and Young, New York 1951.

Kelly, Fred C., _The Wright Brothers_. (A Biography Authorized by Orville Wright.) Harcourt, Brace and Company, New York, 1943.

McFarland, Marvin W. (Ed.), _The Papers of Wilbur and Orville Wright, including the Chanute-Wright Letters and other Papers of Octave Chanute_. 2 vols., McGraw-Hill Book Company, New York, 1953.

U.S. GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE: 1963 OF--710-606

NATIONAL PARK SERVICE HISTORICAL HANDBOOK SERIES

(Price has of National Park Service Publications may be obtained from the Superintendent of Documents, Washington 25, D.C.)

Antietam Aztec Ruins Bandelier Chalmette Chickamauga and Chattanooga Battlefields Custer Battlefield Custis-Lee Mansion, The Robert E. Lee Memorial Fort Laramie Fort McHenry Fort Necessity Fort Pulaski Fort Raleigh Fort Sumter Fort Union George Washington Birthplace Gettysburg Guilford Courthouse Hopewell Village Independence Jamestown, Virginia Kings Mountain The Lincoln Museum and the House Where Lincoln Died Manassas (Bull Run) Montezuma Castle Morristown, A Military Capital of the Revolution Ocmulgee Petersburg Battlefields Richmond Battlefields Saratoga Scotts Bluff Shiloh Statue of Liberty Vanderbilt Mansion Vicksburg Wright Brothers Yorktown

Transcriber's Notes

--Retained publication information from the printed edition: this eBook is public-domain in the country of publication.

--Corrected a few palpable typographical errors.

--Transcribed some text from illustrations, for the sake of the text versions.

--In the text versions only, text in italics is delimited by _underscores_.