First in Flight

“First in Flight” is a phrase I saw lot growing up. My home state’s neighbor to the north—North Carolina—still has this today as an option for everyone’s license plates.

They’re talking about Wilbur and Orville Wright, another one of those dynamic duos who shaped history. Those brothers owned a bicycle shop, where they built the first airplane that worked, and they flew it themselves in Kitty Hawk, a town in NC near the beach.

120 years earlier, just as the American Revolutionary War had just drawn to a close, and four years before the Constitution was written, the first human beings flew overhead in a controlled manner. Their names were Jean-François Pilâtre de Rozier and François Laurent d'Arlandes, and they flew in a hot air balloon.

I was able to visit the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum last year. This place is worth a visit if you can make it! The history of flight is right there before your eyes:

The airplanes are overwhelmingly cool to see up close. You can get within a few feet…