First flight, 120 feet in 12 seconds, 10:35 ; Kitty Hawk, North Carolina (restored photo); Other First flight, December 17, 1903 (restored photo); Summary: The first powered, controlled, sustained airplane flight in history. Orville Wright, age 32, is at the controls of the machine, lying prone on the lower wing with hips in the cradle which operated the wing-warping mechanism. His brother, Wilbur Wright, age 36, ran alongside to help balance the machine, having just released his hold on the forward upright of the right wing. The starting rail, the wing-rest, a coil box, and other items ne

First flight, 120 feet in 12 seconds, 10:35 ; Kitty Hawk, North Carolina (restored photo); Other First flight, December 17, 1903 (restored photo); Summary: The first powered, controlled, sustained airplane flight in history. Orville Wright, age 32, is at the controls of the machine, lying prone on the lower wing with hips in the cradle which operated the wing-warping mechanism. His brother, Wilbur Wright, age 36, ran alongside to help balance the machine, having just released his hold on the forward upright of the right wing. The starting rail, the wing-rest, a coil box, and other items needed for flight preparation are visible behind the machine. (Orville Wright preset the camera and had John T. Daniels squeeze the rubber bulb, tripping the shutter.) Source image is from a 5 x 7 inch photograph, a glass negative, dry plate. Reproduction Number: LC-DIG-ppprs-00626 (digital file from original) LC-W861-35 (b&w film copy neg.) LC-USZ62-6166A (b&w film copy neg.) Call Number: LC-W86- 35 (Cabinet A) [P&P] The source MB .tif file was restored by User:Wright Stuf in November, 2018 using GIMP. This freeware application does not handle 16-bit pixel depth, so this restored .tif file has had the bit depth reduced to 8-bit, with file size shrunk to MB. A .png overlay mask is available here to use with the source file here so that 16-bit depth can be recovered for the vast majority of pixels.;

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