Who Flew
First?

Chapter I · Kill Devil Hills

The Wright Brothers

17 December 1903 · Kitty Hawk, North Carolina

Wilbur and Orville Wright were not the first to fly. Otto Lilienthal had died gliding in 1896; Samuel Langley’s aerodrome had plunged into the Potomac that same year; and a dozen experimenters on both sides of the Atlantic were building machines that hopped, glided or crashed with varying degrees of intent. What the Wrights did that nobody else had managed was control: wing-warping for roll, a forward elevator for pitch, and a rear rudder for yaw — all linked, all practised in gliders first, all understood before they bolted on an engine.

On the morning of 17 December 1903, with a 27 mph wind blowing across the dunes at Kill Devil Hills, Orville Wright lay prone on the lower wing of their Flyer and released the restraint. The machine rose, flew roughly level, and landed 120 feet away in twelve seconds. Three more flights followed that day. Wilbur’s last effort covered 852 feet in 59 seconds — the one that, in retrospect, actually proved the point.

John T. Daniels, a member of the Kill Devil Hills Life-Saving Station, took a photograph of the first flight that has become the most reproduced image in aviation history. Five witnesses were present. The Wrights filed for a patent in 1903 and did not stage public demonstrations until 1908 — by which time much of Europe had decided they were either bluffing or irrelevant.

Chapter II · Parc de Bagatelle

Alberto Santos Dumont

23 October 1906 · Paris, France

Alberto Santos Dumont had already made his name with dirigibles — small, personal airships he flew over Parisian rooftops, parking them outside his apartment and descending by rope ladder. He was, by 1906, the most famous aviator alive. When he turned to heavier-than-air machines, he did so in full view of the press, the Aéro-Club de France, and half of Parisian society.

His 14-bis (“fourteen mark two”) was a box-kite biplane canard: a cellular wing structure with a forward elevator, an Antoinette V-8 engine behind the pilot, and a wheeled undercarriage. It looked nothing like the Wright Flyer. It did not need a rail, a catapult, or a headwind strong enough to blow your hat into the Atlantic.

On 23 October 1906, before officials of the Aéro-Club de France, Santos Dumont ran the 14-bis across the grass of the Parc de Bagatelle, lifted off under its own power, flew about sixty metres at roughly two metres altitude, and landed. He had won the Deutsch-Archdeacon Prize for the first flight of more than twenty-five metres. On 12 November he flew 220 metres — and the European aviation establishment wrote it down, published it, and celebrated.

In Brazil, Santos Dumont is O Pai da Aviação — the Father of Aviation. Brazilian federal law (12.364/2010) designates him as such and marks 23 October as the national Day of the Aviator. In the United States, the same date passes unnoticed. National pride is not a minor factor in this dispute.

14-bis

Box-kite canard biplane · wheeled undercarriage · cellular wings

Demoiselle (1907)

Light monoplane · Santos Dumont’s next act · sold plans to the public

Chapter III · Definitions

What Counts as “First”?

The rules were written after the flights happened

Every side in this argument is really arguing about criteria. There is no single international treaty that says “the first flight is defined as X.” Instead, there are several overlapping standards — and the Wrights and Santos Dumont satisfy different ones.

Powered and heavier-than-air. Both machines qualify. The Wrights’ 1903 Flyer and Santos Dumont’s 14-bis were powered aeroplanes, not gliders or airships.

Controlled flight. The Wrights had this in 1903 — barely, but genuinely. Santos Dumont’s early 14-bis hops were more ballistic than elegant; his control improved with each attempt through November 1906.

Sustained flight. Here the Wrights lead, decisively — but not on the day that gets printed on calendars. Their 1903 flights lasted seconds. Their 1905 Flyer III at Huffman Prairie flew for over half an hour and covered twenty-four miles. By 1905, nobody else was close. Santos Dumont’s certified flights in 1906 were measured in metres, not minutes.

Unassisted take-off. This is the crux of the Brazilian and French case. The Wright Flyer used a rail and, from 1904 onwards, a catapult derrick to assist take-off in low winds. It had no wheels; it landed on skids. Santos Dumont’s 14-bis ran across grass on its own wheels and lifted without external assistance. European prize rules — and later FAI practice — cared about this distinction.

Public demonstration and official witnesses. Santos Dumont flew before certifying officials in a public park. The Wrights flew before five men on a remote beach and then went home to Ohio without telling the press. Secrecy was a commercial and patent strategy; it was also a propaganda own-goal.

Chapter IV · Institutional combat

The Smithsonian War

Langley vs Wright vs Curtiss · 1903–1948

The dispute was not only transatlantic. It was also fought inside the United States — and at its centre was the Smithsonian Institution, which had spent $50,000 of US government money on Samuel Langley’s Aerodrome, watched it collapse into the Potomac twice in 1903, and then found itself with a vested interest in not crediting two bicycle mechanics from Ohio.

When the Wright Flyer finally reached the Smithsonian in 1948, Orville Wright insisted on a label stating that the museum recognised the 1903 Flyer as the first heavier-than-air machine “capable of flight.” He had previously loaned the aircraft to the Science Museum, London for twenty years rather than let the Smithsonian display it with Langley’s machine credited as first. The feud lasted decades.

Glenn Curtiss, meanwhile, had modified Langley’s Aerodrome in 1914 to make a brief hop and claimed Langley had been first — a demonstration widely regarded as rigged. The Wright patent wars with Curtiss nearly bankrupted the American aviation industry. National museums, national heroes, and national pride were never far from the surface.