How We Invented The World_ Wright Brothers

Once we gazed at the skies and imagined what it would be like to fly. Like Icarus, I think that there's a thing in us that always wants to rise up. We all dream of flight, I mean literally we dream. We call routine our ancestors would have called absolutely godlike. We are masters of the sky, the secrets of the airplane. Lift, power, pressurization, and the hardest to master, control. On the quiet back roads of Dayton, Ohio, these two young men make discoveries that will usher in a new age, the age of aviation. Connecting concepts together that at first sight don't seem like they're connected, that's I think what innovative thinking is. The brothers discover that to keep control an aircraft must turn like a bike does, by banking to one side and throwing the balance in the direction of the turn. But a pilot can't lean like a rider, so the Wrights invent small movable pieces of their plane that create the same effect by changing airflow over the wings and tail. The basics of the system that pilots like Sullenberger will later rely on. Through trial and dangerous error, they gradually master this technique. It is the first key breakthrough in the invention of our modern airborne world. Orville and Wilbur, they truly broke the rules. I mean, talk about a prototype. They did it, they did it. You know, they got us off the ground. In 1903, the first real airplane, the Wright Flyer, makes the brothers fame and fortune. Six years later, an improved version draws huge crowds when it flies low over the Hudson River. Our urge to fly has been realized. But the future of aviation, just like its past, lies in the hands of pioneers and risk-takers.