The Wright Brothers' First Flights, 17 December 1903
On 17 December 1903 Orville and Wilbur Wright made four powered flights at Kitty Hawk. The longest was 852 feet in 59 seconds.
In this article
On the morning of 17 December 1903, Orville and Wilbur Wright made four short flights in a powered, heavier-than-air machine on the sands of North Carolina. The first lasted 12 seconds and covered 120 feet. The fourth, the best of the day, went 852 feet in 59 seconds. The Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum credits these as the first powered airplane flights.
The machine
The aircraft is known as the 1903 Wright Flyer. According to the Smithsonian, it had a 12-horsepower four-cylinder engine that drove two pusher propellers through a system of chains and sprockets. Its wingspan was 12.3 metres (40 feet 4 inches) and its length 6.4 metres (21 feet 1 inch). It weighed 274 kilograms (605 pounds) empty and 341 kilograms (750 pounds) with the pilot aboard. Wikipedia describes the engine as a water-cooled straight-four of about 3,295 cubic centimetres.
Where and when
The flights took place on the dunes near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. The Smithsonian says the first flight began at about 10:35 in the morning. The brothers took turns as pilot. The Smithsonian says an attempt by Wilbur on 14 December had failed and slightly damaged the Flyer, so the aircraft needed repair before the December 17 attempts.
The four flights
The best available figures come from the Smithsonian and from Wikipedia, and they do not fully agree on the middle two flights.
- Flight 1: Orville, 120 feet (about 37 metres) in 12 seconds.
- Flight 2: probably Wilbur. Wikipedia gives 175 feet in 12 seconds; the Smithsonian says only that the second and third flights were in the range of 200 feet.
- Flight 3: probably Orville. Wikipedia gives 200 feet in 15 seconds.
- Flight 4: Wilbur, 852 feet (about 260 metres) in 59 seconds, the longest of the day.
Both sources say that only the pilots of the first and last flights are named directly; the second and third are inferred from the brothers' habit of alternating. The Smithsonian also holds the stopwatch used to time the flights, a nickel-plated hand-held watch made by Gallet and dated about 1903.
How the flights were counted
Wikipedia's table specifies that the 852 feet of the fourth flight is the distance over the ground. That is a different measure from the distance flown through the air, which depends on the wind. Neither of the sources used here gives the wind speed or the air distance, so this article does not state them. When comparing early flights, it helps to check whether a figure is ground distance and whether the time is given with it.
The 12-second first flight is easy to put into context. At 120 feet it was shorter than the wingspan of many modern airliners is long; the fourth flight, at 852 feet, was about seven times the first. The step from the first flight to the last in a single morning shows how quickly the brothers were learning to control the machine, though the sources used here do not describe how they did so.
What happened afterwards
The Smithsonian says that after the flights a gust of wind overturned the Flyer and badly damaged it, and that it never flew again. The aircraft is now displayed at the National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., where Wikipedia says it has a place of honour.
The sources used here do not go into the brothers' earlier glider tests or their later aircraft, which are separate stories. The Smithsonian's description of the day as the first powered airplane flights is the main claim: a machine that left the ground under its own power and was flown by a pilot on board. Later aircraft flew much farther.
In short
Four flights, at about 10:35 in the morning on 17 December 1903, lasted between 12 and 59 seconds, and the longest covered 852 feet. Details of the middle two flights vary between sources. The facts in this article come from the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum and from Wikipedia, as of 1 November 2026.
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