Wilbur and Orville Wright: The First Airplane

2025 · VOA Learning English

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Transcript

1. Wilbur and Orville Wright are the American inventors who made a small engine-powered flying machine.

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2. They proved that flight without the aid of gas-filled balloons was possible. Wilbur Wright was born in 1867 near Melville, Indiana.

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3. His brother Orville was born four years later in Dayton, Ohio. As they grew up, the Wright brothers experimented with mechanical things.

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4. Later, the Wright brothers began to design their own flying machine.

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5. They used ideas they had developed from earlier experiments with a toy helicopter, kites, the printing machine and bicycles.

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6. Soon, they needed a place to test their ideas about flight.

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7. The best place with the best wind conditions seemed to be a piece of sandy land in North Carolina along the coast of the Atlantic Ocean.

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8. It was called Kill Devil Hill, near the town of Kitty Hawk. The Wright brothers did many tests with gliders at Kitty Hawk.

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9. With these tests, they learned how to solve many problems.

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10. By the autumn of 1903, Wilbur and Orville had designed and built an airplane powered by a gasoline engine.

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11. The plane had wings 12 meters across. It weighed about 340 kilograms, including the pilot.

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12. On December 17th, 1903, they made the world's first flight in a machine that was heavier than air and powered by an engine.

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13. Orville flew the plane 36 meters. He was in the air for 12 seconds.

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14. The two brothers made three more flights that day. Four other men watched the Wright brothers' first flights.

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15. One of the men took pictures. Few newspapers, however, noted the event.

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16. It was almost five years before the Wright brothers became famous. In 1908, Wilbur went to France.

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17. He gave demonstration flights at heights of 90 meters. A French company agreed to begin making the Wright brothers' flying machine.

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18. Orville made successful flights in the United States at the time Wilbur was in France. The United States War Department agreed to buy a Wright brothers' plane.

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19. Wilbur and Orville suddenly became world heroes. But the brothers were not seeking fame.

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20. They returned to Dayton where they continued to improve their airplanes. They taught many others how to fly.

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21. Wilbur Wright died of typhoid fever in 1912. Orville Wright continued designing and inventing until he died many years later, in 1948.

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22. Today, the Wright brothers' first airplane is in the Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

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23. Visitors to the museum can look at the Wright brothers' small plane. Then they can walk to another area and see space vehicles and a rock collected from the moon.

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