Flight

Flight…

All on its own, this one word inspires me with an endless supply of breathtaking visions of soaring through the air, unencumbered by gravity’s limiting grip. I’ve always been one to get lost in cloud-watching, imagining what it’d be like to jump on those fluffy sky pillows. And yes… I know that’s not how it works.

Everyone has shared this daydream at one point or another.

Leaping off the ground, and unlike all previous attempts, continuing to float in midair.

Every child and child-at-heart could easily fill an afternoon pondering the answer to the question “What would you do if you had the power to fly?”

Ever since I can remember, I’ve loved staring up at the sky and imagining what it would be like to soar in the wind with the ease of superman. 

This universal human fantasy was the same spark that motivated Orville and Wilbur Wright to design and create the world’s first successfully controlled and mechanically propelled heavier-than-air aircraft on December 17, 1903.

Though best known for the advances they made in aviation, the Wright brothers didn’t start there. After having dropped out of high school, Orville (the younger of the two) started a printing business in 1889 after having designed and built his very own printing press with Wilbur’s help. In 1892, they opened a bicycle repair shop and four years later began manufacturing their own brand.

Though neither brother graduated high school, they were anything but incompetent!

As aeronautical interests grew in the zeitgeist of the late 1800’s, the brothers used their humble business endeavors to fund their aviation research. 

Like all influential thinkers, creators, and pioneers, the Wright brothers did not propel humanity upward (pun intended) on their own. They drew upon the blood, sweat, and tears of their lesser known predecessors George Cayley, Octave Chanute, and Otto Lilienthal.

All that to say, the Wright brothers definitely earned their spot in the history books. The human mobility and connectivity we enjoy today (often taken for granted) exists because of their hard work and brilliant minds. Think about it for a moment… we jump on a plane, fasten our seatbelts, insert our headphones and 3 hours later we step out, on the other side of the country. 

How crazy is that?!

Though superpowers don’t exist in any literal form (I’m still waiting to be bitten by a radioactive spider, so who knows), flight HAS become a reality for us. Humans have the ability to traverse the globe sipping wine and surfing the web, all while sitting in a comfortable (depending on the airline of choice) chair in a climate controlled cabin at 30,000 feet in the air.

Mind. Blown. 

Thanks, Orville and Wilbur… for getting us off the ground.