THEY CAME FOR THE WIND

and Wilbur and Orville found it, as did we.  But I get ahead of myself.  We made our way to the Outer Banks and the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.  We entered via the bridges to the north, at Nag’s Head, then went south about ten miles along the island to the Oregon Inlet campground of the NPS.  Again, no hookups, but there were flush bathrooms and little cold-shower outhouses.  All the comforts.  The park doesn’t have any beach views as it is shielded from the ocean by the sand dunes, but it was just fine.

We had tanked up on water at Pettigrew and our waste tanks were low, so we were set for 3 days of dry camping.  I was eager to see how well our solar panel recharged the batteries now that I reset the float level lower (~13.65V vs the “super boost” 14.6 that the factory uses).  I was afraid the constant higher boost was cooking the batteries, which would cause premature failure.  With watching TV and viewing a video, and normal lights use, we did just fine.  Of course, we’re at the seashore (no tree shadows) and the sun is almost at its maximum height, so all conditions were optimal.  Except for the clouds and rain.  More on that later.  That’s the bridge connecting ours with the 

next island in the Banks’ chain.  The place was only about 15% occupied, so we had some space between ourselves and our nearest neighbors.  Not enough, as it turned out.  There was a large tent, with nobody around when we pulled in and set up.  They returned about 8:00 that evening; four guys and two girls, early 20’s.  It’s still plenty light out at 8 at this time of year.  One of the guys simply turned away from his friends and proceeded to piss on the ground almost facing us.  One of the longest pees on record.  They must have been out having more than a few brews.  One of the girls was a shriek-laugher, and she kept that up until about midnight.  Fun and games at the seashore.  Fortunately, the wind came up and helped drown out the party.  Even more fortunately, the wind really howled the next night, nearly blowing their tent away, and we heard no merriment.

We headed north to Kill Devil Hill, just south of the hamlet of Kitty Hawk.  It was at the Hill that they made their flight, but stayed in a private home in KH during their first stay testing their gliders.  The monument is quite good, and a must-see if in the area.  The Hill is where they launched their gliders, and it more or less remains today.  Atop it is a huge concrete monument to the brothers and the birth of flight.

The powered flights did not take off from the hill, but rather from a flat field at its base.  My finger points more or less at the end of the flight path of the fourth flight that took place that day.

There were four flights.  Orville took the first, and went a grand total of 120 feet.

Wilbur went next, and went about 175.  Then Orville took the third attempt and made it just a tad further.  The fourth and final was Wilbur’s, and he made a beaut at over 400 feet.  That’s the little white dot in the far distance above.  Controlled, powered flight was finally a reality.  The excellent museum on site goes through the unbelievable story about how these two bicycle mechanics from Ohio analyzed the problems of flight, tested endlessly, built their own wind tunnel, corrected the wildly erroneous existing mathematical tables on various lift applications, and essentially geniused their way into their well deserved place in history.  And it all happened right where we were standing.  Very cool.