First flight blazes the trail for future discovery – The Wright Brothers and Lincoln Ellsworth

Posted on December 17, 2020 Updated on December 17, 2020

by Angie Cope

On the morning of December 17, 1903, Wilbur and Orville Wright took turns piloting and monitoring their flying machine in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. Orville piloted the first flight that lasted just 12 seconds and 120 feet. On the fourth and final flight of the day, Wilbur traveled 852 feet, remaining airborne for 59 seconds. That morning, the brothers became the first people to demonstrate sustained flight of a heavier-than-air machine under the complete control of the pilot.

Orville and Wilbur Wright are credited with inventing, building, and flying the world’s first successful motor-operated airplane. Their inventions led the way for world exploration using airplanes. One notable flight was the Ellsworth Transantarctic Flight Expedition. Lincoln Ellsworth with pilot Herbert Hollick-Kenyon completed the first transantarctic flight in history. With four stops along the route, the flight covered 2200 miles with an elapsed time of approximately 20 hours.

The transantarctic flight was the longest flight in Antarctic history, an accomplishment not repeated again until January 1956.

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The story map of flying being a chronicle of man’s conquest of the air / designed, pictured and published by Ernest Dudley Chase of Winchester Massachusetts, 1942
1 map : color ; 65 x 47 cm, on sheet 77 x 56 cm