The wind was strong that morning - gusting between 20 and 30 miles per hour. The Wright brothers had lots of reasons to delay their flight. The wind chill over the ocean would be about 4 degrees Fahrenheit - pretty cold for someone flying unprotected on Flyer 1. Just three days before Wilbur, winning a coin toss to see who would fly first, had taken the controls of Flyer 1 only to make a misjudgment at launch. Will's telegraph describing the misadventure, recorded by his father on December 15, says it all.

But even though weather conditions were extremely unfavorable on the 17th, the brothers wanted to be home for Christmas. In an uncharacteristic action that has amazed historians ever since, the Wrights put safety second and passion first. It was time to fly their new airplane.

At about 10:30 a.m. Orville, who had lost the coin toss to Wilbur on the 14th, took the controls. The wind was gusting at about 27 miles per hour. Launching from a homemade track apparatus the brothers called their "Grand Junction Railroad," Orville flew 120 feet in 12 seconds. Since no one had ever flown before, the Wright brothers knew they were taking a chance. They had their life-saving crew standing by.

The crew witnessed the first time a human being ever flew a plane, under his control, from the ground, through the air, and back safely, but the short flight was jerky and unsteady. Orville, like his brother three days before, didn't have a good handle on the controls. Inventing a plane was one thing; actually flying it in real time was something else. They wanted to test Flyer 1 again.

Wilbur flew next. His flight took him 175 feet. Orville was pilot-in-command of the 200-feet third flight. The last flight - ever - of Flyer 1 was amazing. Wilbur had a good feel of the controls. He flew 59 seconds and covered 852 feet before he landed, breaking the rudder frame, after he lost control in a wind gust.

Hand-carrying Flyer 1 back to the launching point, the brothers nearly lost the plane and one of their helpers, John Daniels (who had photographed the picture of the first flight). With the wind continuing to blow, the men put the plane down so they could rest. A sudden wind gust picked up one wing and, with Daniels caught in the bracing wires as he tried to protect the plane, it rolled again and again. Daniels escaped without injury, but Flyer 1 looked like a heap of kindling wood and torn cloth. It was later put back together and donated to the Smithsonian Institute where it is today - in the National Air and Space Museum.

Later that afternoon, Orville sent a telegram to his father who was home in Dayton. Elated, Mr. Wright wrote his personal thoughts in his diary, including his consternation that the press had not reported the amazing events. Orville also penned his reactions to the day's events in his diary.

The test flights proved Orville and Wilbur Wright had conquered the initial problems of flight. They had filed an application for their new invention with the U.S. Patent Office nearly nine months before. But they had more work to do before they could make a practical airplane. Flyer 1 was underpowered and hard to control. It would only fly in a straight line for about a minute.

For the next two years the brothers improved their designs. They set up the world's first test flight facilities at Huffman Prairie, today the site of Wright Patterson Air Force Base. By the end of 1905, with Flyer 3 still including parts that looked as though they belonged on a bicycle, they were flying figure-eights over Huffman Prairie until their fuel ran out. They had solved the practical problems of flight.

By 1909, the Wright brothers had developed their first military flyer. Wilbur went to Europe and showed Europeans how to fly. (Follow this link to a movie of that event.) The Wright brothers' place as two of history's greatest inventors was assured.

Like Gutenberg before them, Wilbur and Orville Wright forever changed life, as human beings had known it. No longer did people live in a two-dimensional world. No longer did men fight battles only on land and on sea.