Discovery Gallery

Air Exploration

Further, Higher, Faster

Leonardo da Vinci and other early inventors longed to fly and designed countless flying machines. But powered flight remained an unrealized dream until the invention of the internal combustion engine. Wilbur and Orville Wright applied that new technology to the problem of flight. Their twelve-second flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina on December 17, 1903 ushered in the modern age of aviation. Soon after the Wright brothers' success, aviators took to the skies. With each passing year, records were set and broken. The Smithsonian's aeronautical collections record the history of technological development and pay tribute to the people who made aviation history.

The Orteig Check	Amelia Earhart's Flight Suit
Earhart's Commemorative Envelope	Chuck Yeager's Jacket
Wright Brothers Engine	The Vin Fiz Aircraft

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