Who invented the airplane? What to know about the first flight and who was responsible.
Airliners are debuting swankier first-class options so that more travelers can fly in the lap of luxury. The new designs are the last changes for the aviation industry more than 100 years after a set of siblings modernized air travel.
New designs of planes are always in the news and people across the globe have always had an infatuation with airplanes. Just recently, budget airliner Frontier and UK-based British Airways unveiled new designs of their luxury-class seats, hoping to attract more passengers to the skies.
Air travel wasn't on many people's minds until 1903 when two brothers from Ohio revolutionized planes.
"Some of the things people don't know is how important they were in developing the plane itself, but the science behind building the plane," said Tom Paone, museum specialist at the National Air and Space Museum, of Wilbur and Orville Wright. "They designed, built and flew a series of aircraft. They really pioneered the practice of aeronautical engineering we see today."
Who invented the airplane?
Who invented the first successful airplane depends on how people define an aircraft, Paone said. Wilbur and Orville Wright, colloquially known as the Wright Brothers, are credited with flying the first powered, heavier-than-air and controlled aircraft.
Paone said aviators previously flew using balloons, kites and gliders until the Wright Brothers conducted the first flight in 1903.
How long did the first plane fly for?
The brothers flew the iconic 1903 Wright Flyer on Dec. 17, 1903, in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Paone said. They conducted several tests, but Orville made the first flight at 10:35 a.m., lasting 12 seconds and traveling 120 feet.
Wilbur flew it the longest that day for 59 seconds and across 852 feet.
"They proved that they can have controlled, sustained flight," he said.
The duo chose Kitty Hawk after advice from the U.S. Weather Bureau (now known as the National Weather Service) about a large, flat area with soft sand and steady but strong winds. That flight started a friendly competition between Ohio and North Carolina over who really holds credit for the Wrights. Paone said they lived and kept their shop with the planes in Dayton, Ohio.
"One of the big things the Wright Brothers did is pioneer aeronautical engineering," he said. "They built a kite and several series of gliders to test their theories and designs."
What did the Wright brothers build before planes?
Before being known as the pioneers they are, Paone said the Wright Brothers dabbled with a printing press, newspapers and bicycles.
"They started a bicycle shop, the Wright Cycle Company," he said. "The bike craze came to America and they decided to make their own in 1895."
At the company, they built, repaired and sold bicycles that funded their aviation hobby, Paone said. According to the National Air and Space Museum, the brothers had five locations in Dayton and sold other brands before launching their own hand-craft models.
"During their peak production years of 1896 to 1900, Wilbur and Orville built about 300 bicycles and earned $2,000 to $3,000 a year, " the museum said. "Only five bicycles made by the Wright brothers are known to still exist."
The Henry Ford Museum, located in Dearborn, Michigan, has the brothers' Van Cleve and St. Clair bicycle models in its collections. The Smithsonian and the National Museum of the United States Air Force also have the brothers' bicycles in their collections. The Wright Cycle Company ceased operations in 1897, according to the National Park Service.
In their printing endeavors, Orville ran a printing company called Sines and Wright in 1888 in Dayton. He and Wilbur started a printing press Item Publishing Company and helped produce flyers, pamphlets and small newspapers from 1889 to 1899. With the press, they started The Midget, a school newspaper; The Evening Item, a small regional newspaper; and West Side News, a Dayton-focused newspaper, according to Wright State University, a small public university located in Dayton.
The university said the brothers ran one issue of The Midget in April 1886. The Evening Item covered local up to international news, with the latter of the two being a digest. Wright University said the Wright Brothers kept The Evening Item purposely short and ran it from April 1890 to July 1890.
"West Side News was a weekly newspaper originally published by Orville Wright, and later enlisted the help of his brother, Wilbur, as editor," the university said. "This paper, published in March 1889 through May of 1890, featured news from the west side of Dayton."
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Contact reporter Krystal Nurse at knurse@USATODAY.com. Follow her on X, formerly Twitter,@KrystalRNurse, and on BlueSky @krystalrnuse.bsky.social.