VIPs honor first flight centennial
Effort to re-enact flight falls short
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The Wright flyer replica ends up in the mud after failing to take off during the re-enactment.
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An attempt to recreate the Wright brothers' 1903 flight fails to take off.
President Bush pays tribute to Wilbur and Orville Wright's first successful manned, motorized flight.
The impact of flight on American history and business.
CNN's Kathleen Koch takes a look back at air travel for the masses (December 12)
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KILL DEVIL HILLS, North Carolina (CNN) -- One hundred years after the Wright brothers successfully flew for the first time, a replica of their plane failed the test.
Crowds cheered as the twin propellers of the fragile wood-and-muslin aircraft came to life. But the re-enactment of the historic 12-second, 120-foot flight was not to be.
The meticulous reproduction of the 1903 Wright Flyer taxied down a sloped track but puddles on the sandy runway helped keep the machine firmly on the ground Wednesday.
The Wright brothers would have sympathized. Many of their early efforts also failed to get airborne.
But the failed flight and rainy weather did not dampen celebrations for the centennial of Wilbur and Orville Wright's first successful manned, motorized flight at Kill Devil Hills, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.
President Bush marked the centennial by attributing U.S. achievements in aviation and space exploration to "something in the American character."
"By our skill and daring, America has excelled in every area of aviation and space travel, and our national commitment remains firm," Bush told an audience gathered in steady rain on the Outer Banks, where the Wright Flyer first took off December 17, 1903.
"By our skill and daring, we will continue to lead the world in flight," he said.
The airplane belongs to the world, Bush said, "but the Wright brothers belong to America."
"We take special pride in their qualities of discipline, persistence, optimism and imagination of people like them and a lot of other people in our history," he said.
"We still rely on men and women who overcome the odds and take the big chance with no advantage but their own ingenuity and the opportunities of a free country."
Bush did not use the event to announce plans for a U.S. return to the moon, as some reports suggested earlier this month. The last lunar landing was in 1972.
U.S. officials told CNN the Bush administration is reviewing the space program with an eye toward revamping and expanding manned space flight, including talk of a permanent base on the moon and a manned mission to Mars.
The Air Age takes flight
The Wright brothers, a pair of professional bicycle mechanics and self-taught engineers, made four flights on December 17, 1903, the first a mere hop of 12 seconds, the last an 852-foot jaunt of 59 seconds.
Their success spawned the Air Age. Their relatively simple biplane gave way to Sopwith Camels and Curtiss Jennys, to DC-3s and 707s, to Gulfstreams and Lears; to Delta, United and KLM and O'Hare, Narita and Heathrow; and even Mercury, Gemini and Apollo.
The Wright brothers are the most unlikely of revolutionaries. At the time of their invention, several men were attempting to achieve flight in heavier-than-air machines. Indeed, the Wright brothers' 1903 achievement was little known to the world for several years afterward.
"There was considerable danger they'd be forgotten and their contributions buried," said James Tobin, author of "To Conquer the Air," a history on the Wrights and the race to fly. "One thing I admire is they wanted to walk the walk, and not trumpet their achievement until it was brought to completion."
The Wrights took two years after the Kitty Hawk flight to perfect their machine, he added. "That part of the story is largely forgotten," he told CNN earlier this year.
Among the notables paying tribute to the Wrights on Tuesday, during a six-day festival to celebrate the brothers' achievement, were astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin -- the first men to walk on the moon -- and fellow space pioneer John Glenn, who flew in two different spacecraft 36 years apart, in 1962 and 1998.
At 82, Glenn still flies his personal plane, a twin-engine Beechcraft.
"I guess I never got tired of it," the astronaut told the Associated Press. "Just being able to see things as they are from that altitude, for me it's just always been an enjoyable experience."
Some note that the brothers, now immortalized in bronze on the site, are still teaching us about letting our minds take flight.
"You gotta have some dreams," said Tom Moul, a visitor to the celebration. "You gotta believe in them and work hard to make them happen."
Copyright 2003 CNN. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Associated Press contributed to this report.
