Kitty Hawk

We started off today by going to Kitty Hawk and the Wright Brothers National Memorial . They have replicas of the gliders and the plane they flew in 1903. There was a presentation showing the plane and the development of the controls. They had some of the original documentation a complete history of the development.

Here is a picture of a replica glider they used in 1902.

After testing that year they went back to Dayton and re-wrote the book on aeronautics, they built their own wind tunnel and then when no one would sell them a motor - they designed and built their own. Since no one had built a airplane propeller they had to design and build their own. The fabric they had was too wide for the wings they built so one of the brothers borrowed a sewing machine and resewed the fabric for the wings.

Here is a picture of the 1903 plane.

Here is a picture of me at the monument for the distance of the first flight from the point at which it took off.

After the Wright Brothers we had lunch at the trailer and then Kathie and I went to Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. It was about 50 miles along a long string of sandbars they call islands around here. Hurricane Irene apparently cut an inlet through the island in August.

When got back I took some pictures from around the campsite. The first one is the trailers reflected in the lake. This is the first time since we have been here that it has been calm - yesterday there were almost whitecaps on the water.

This is looking across the lake at the sunset.

It was another good day - it has been cool here but it is supposed to warm up over the next couple of days.