My wife, Jean and I visited the Wright Brothers National Memorial at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina recently and it just blew my mind the way the Wright Brothers met each new challenge head on and when they needed a special part they just created it. Most of the previous research on flying was flawed and so they had to do some truly brilliant, breakthrough research of their own as they moved toward their goal. I could just imagine the invention of the Airplane as done under government sponsored research projects. Half of all the money used would be spent in lobbying for more money for research.
On December 17, 1903, near Kitty Hawk, N. C., they made the first controlled, sustained flights in a power-driven airplane. Of their four flights on that day, the first, made by Orville, lasted 12 sec, and the fourth, by Wilbur, covered 852 ft (259 m) in 59 sec. I visited this site many years ago and my legs were in much better shape and just to cement this awesome accomplishment into my mind I recall running each distance of these flights and then on the longest one I held out my arms and envisioned flying to the moon. I recalled a quote, “A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Lao-tzu.”
I must admit that all of this stuck in my mind and as I sit here at my computer I look at some of my as yet unfulfilled dreams with renewed vigor.
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