Flight: Wright Flyer to Concorde

1903 – 200374 items

flighttechnology
The first flight, Kill Devil Hills, 17 December 1903: Orville Wright at the controls, Wilbur running alongside. Photo: John T. Daniels, on Orville’s camera; restored by Wright Stuf. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.
The first flight, Kill Devil Hills, 17 December 1903: Orville Wright at the controls, Wilbur running alongside. Photo: John T. Daniels, on Orville’s camera; restored by Wright Stuf. Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.

From 12 seconds to twice the speed of sound

On 17 December 1903 Orville Wright flew 120 feet in 12 seconds over the sand at Kill Devil Hills. Seventy-three years later Concorde carried a hundred passengers from London to Bahrain at twice the speed of sound. This timeline follows the century between: the pioneers, two world wars, the record-breakers, the airlines and the jets, and ends in 2003, when the last Concorde landed at Filton and a replica Flyer failed to leave the ground at Kill Devil Hills.

How to read it

  • Zoom in on 17 December 1903: the four flights of that morning are told minute by minute.

  • Bands mark the eras: the pioneers, the First World War, the golden age, the airships, the Second World War, the jet age and Concorde’s 27 years.

  • Filter by tag to follow one thread: records, airlines, war, women, supersonic or disaster.

I confess that in 1901 I said to my brother Orville that man would not fly for fifty years. Two years later we ourselves were making flights. — Wilbur Wright, Paris, November 1908

Times of day are UTC. Death tolls come from the official accident reports and the sources named on each item.

Items

  1. Langley’s Aerodrome falls into the Potomac

    Potomac off Arsenal Point, Washington

  2. Wilbur wins the coin toss, and stalls

    Big Kill Devil Hill

  3. Pioneer era

    ≈ 10 years, 7 months

  4. Four flights at Kill Devil Hills

    1 hour, 26 minutes · First flight boulder, Wright Brothers National Memorial

  5. First flight: Orville, 12 seconds

    First flight boulder, Wright Brothers National Memorial

  6. Second flight: Wilbur, 175 feet

    First flight boulder, Wright Brothers National Memorial

  7. Third flight: Orville, 200 feet

    First flight boulder, Wright Brothers National Memorial

  8. Fourth flight: Wilbur, 852 feet in 59 seconds

    First flight boulder, Wright Brothers National Memorial

  9. A gust wrecks the Flyer

    First flight boulder, Wright Brothers National Memorial

  10. Telegram to Dayton

    Kitty Hawk weather station

  11. Flyer III: the first practical aeroplane

    Huffman Prairie, near Dayton

  12. Santos-Dumont flies 220 metres at Bagatelle

    Parc de Bagatelle, Bois de Boulogne

  13. Wilbur Wright stuns Le Mans

    Les Hunaudières racecourse, Le Mans

  14. Selfridge killed at Fort Myer

    Parade ground, Fort Myer, Virginia

  15. Blériot flies the Channel

    Les Baraques, near Calais, to Dover Castle

  16. Reims aviation week

    7 days · Bétheny plain, Reims

  17. Zeppelin passenger era

    ≈ 27 years, 5 months

  18. Raymonde de Laroche, the first licensed woman pilot

  19. The first official airmail, at Allahabad

    Allahabad to Naini, over the Yamuna

  20. The first bombs dropped from an aeroplane

    Ain Zara oasis, near Tripoli

  21. Garros flies across the Mediterranean

    Fréjus to Bizerte

  22. The first scheduled airline flight

    St. Petersburg to Tampa

  23. First World War

    ≈ 4 years, 3 months

  24. Zeppelins bomb England

    Great Yarmouth

  25. The Royal Air Force is formed

  26. The Red Baron is shot down

    Near Vaux-sur-Somme

  27. Golden age of aviation

    ≈ 20 years

  28. Alcock and Brown fly the Atlantic non-stop

    1 day · St John’s, Newfoundland, to Clifden, Ireland

  29. Bessie Coleman earns her pilot’s licence

  30. KLM reaches the Dutch East Indies

    Tjililitan airfield, Batavia

  31. Lindbergh flies New York to Paris

    ≈ 1 day, 9 hours · Roosevelt Field, New York, to Le Bourget, Paris

  32. Southern Cross crosses the Pacific

    9 days · Oakland to Brisbane, by Hawaii and Fiji

  33. Imperial Airways opens a service to India

    Imperial Airways, Croydon to Karachi, with a rail link from Basle to Genoa

  34. Graf Zeppelin flies around the world

    21 days · Lakehurst, Friedrichshafen, Tokyo, Los Angeles, Lakehurst

  35. Amy Johnson flies solo to Australia

    19 days · Croydon to Darwin

  36. Earhart flies the Atlantic alone

    1 day · Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, to Culmore

  37. China Clipper carries the first transpacific airmail

    7 days · Alameda to Manila, by Honolulu, Midway, Wake and Guam

  38. Douglas DC-3 first flight

    Clover Field, Santa Monica

  39. The Hindenburg burns at Lakehurst

    Naval Air Station Lakehurst

  40. Amelia Earhart disappears

  41. Heinkel He 178: the first jet flight

    Heinkel works, Rostock-Marienehe

  42. Second World War

    ≈ 6 years

  43. Battle of Britain

    3 months, 23 days · South-east England and the Channel

  44. The Chicago Convention

    Stevens Hotel, Chicago

  45. Yeager breaks the sound barrier

    Over Muroc Dry Lake, California

  46. Berlin Airlift

    ≈ 1 year, 3 months · The three air corridors into Berlin

  47. The Wright Flyer comes home to the Smithsonian

    Arts and Industries Building, Washington

  48. Jet age

    ≈ 51 years

  49. Comet opens the jet age

    London to Johannesburg, by Rome, Beirut, Khartoum, Entebbe and Livingstone

  50. Comet G-ALYP breaks up off Elba

    Tyrrhenian Sea, south of Elba

  51. Tex Johnston rolls the Dash 80

    Lake Washington, Seattle

  52. Tu-104 begins jet service in the Soviet Union

    Moscow to Irkutsk

  53. Pan Am’s 707 crosses the Atlantic

    New York to Paris

  54. Tu-144 flies first

    Zhukovsky airfield, near Moscow

  55. Boeing 747 first flight

    Paine Field, Everett

  56. Concorde 001 flies at Toulouse

    Toulouse-Blagnac airport

  57. Concorde 002 flies from Filton

    Filton to RAF Fairford

  58. The first 747 passenger service

    New York to London

  59. Airbus A300 first flight

    Toulouse-Blagnac airport

  60. Tu-144 crashes at the Paris Air Show

    Goussainville

  61. Concorde in service

    ≈ 27 years, 9 months

  62. Concorde’s first passenger flights

    London to Bahrain; Paris to Rio de Janeiro by Dakar

  63. Tenerife: two 747s collide

    Los Rodeos airport, Tenerife

  64. Tu-144 carries passengers

    ≈ 7 months · Moscow to Alma-Ata

  65. Concorde reaches New York

    London and Paris to New York

  66. US airlines are deregulated

  67. Voyager flies around the world non-stop

    9 days · Edwards Air Force Base

  68. Concorde’s fastest Atlantic crossing

    New York to London

  69. Air France Flight 4590 crashes at Gonesse

    La Patte d’Oie, Gonesse

  70. Concorde returns to service

  71. Air France’s last Concorde passenger flight

  72. British Airways’ last commercial Concorde flights

    London Heathrow

  73. The last Concorde flight lands at Filton

    Filton airfield, Bristol

  74. The centennial Flyer fails to fly

    First flight boulder, Wright Brothers National Memorial