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Published: January 22nd 2012
Wright Brothers Airplane
Replica of the first airplane to every fly, built by the Wright Brothers. Today I explore the
Outer Banks of North Carolina.
At first glance, they look like the barrier islands on the east coast of Florida: long stretches of beach sand on the Atlantic, backed by swamps.
They even have the same sort of beach development (and over-development).
That is where the comparisons end, however.
Beyond the swamps in Florida are narrow rivers and then the mainland.
Behind the swamps in the Outer Banks are wide bays known as Sounds.
These lead to a very different type of
environment.
One notices the difference driving in.
Getting to the Outer Banks requires crossing multiple long causeways, with nothing in sight but water and distant land.
The bridges have high cross wind warnings.
Those winds sculpted the environment.
Most have been developed at this point, but the Outer Banks were once covered in sand dunes created by that wind.
Wright Brothers Memorial
The first sight I saw on the Outer Banks is the
Wright Brothers Memorial.
The
Wright Brothers, as any school kid can tell, invented the first airplane.
They needed somewhere to test it, and they did so at
Kitty Hawk.
Wright wind tunnel
Replica of the wind tunnel used in the Wright's experiments They first came here to test gliders, and later powered airplanes.
They chose the Outer Banks for four reasons: the high predictable wind led to easier launches, the sand dunes led to softer landings, the area was a great place to vacation during and afterward, and the isolation at the time meant they could do their tests in the necessary secrecy.
The first part of the memorial holds a museum on the brothers.
They were very good mechanics, which they learned in their bicycle business.
The museum has some of the tools and books they used.
They apparently turned to air flight issues simply because they were interested in the field.
They were very good engineers, and read up on everything they could find.
Their real innovation, however, was a
wind tunnel.
They realized they could not solve wing design issues without hard data, and created this machine to get it.
The museum has a model, which is a simple pipe with an observation window at the end.
It was powered with their shop fan!
They eventually created a glider to test their designs, which first brought
Distance of first flight
Lauch point of the first airplane flight on Kill Devil Hill, seen from where it landed. them to Kitty Hawk.
(Side note: Why is the site called Kitty Hawk when it is located in Kill Devil Hills next door? Kill Devil Hills did not incorporate as its own town until fifty years later).
The museum paints them as inventors obsessed with a dream, but, like Thomas Edison (see
The Birthplace of Modern America), they were really expert engineers.
The museum (for obvious reasons) also glosses over the other people who were working on powered flight at the same time.
The museum has a reproduction of the Wright’s first powered plane, and their glider.
Both of them apparently fly.
They look so rickety that I wouldn’t want to be in either.
The display doesn’t point it out, but both were also
rapidly improved on by other people, so the designs lasted only a few years.
Still, they were the first.
The museum also has a hall of fame of aeronautics pioneers.
Some of them are obvious to anyone (
Charles Lindbergh,
Chuck Yeager) while others are only familiar to serious fans (
Glenn Curtiss, who developed the first commercially sold airplane in 1908).
Outside the museum lies the actual ground where the
Wright Brothers Memorial
Memorial to the Wright Brothers, built by the park service tests took place.
A large sand dune, now stabilized with grass, lies a distance away from the museum.
This was the launch point.
In the field next to the museum are four markers.
These represent the spots were each of the test flights landed.
I felt a tingle of emotion standing next to the first of these, looking at the hill and thinking about how a world-changing industry started right here.
A long sidewalk climbs around the hill to the top.
Even with the spiral, it’s a pretty steep climb.
At the top is a large obelisk with a pair of eagle’s wings carved on it.
It’s dedicated to the brothers, and was erected by the park service in 1937.
The base has an amazing view of the surrounding area.
It’s mostly flat except for an obvious yellow area to the south.
That yellow area was my next target.
Jockey's Ridge State Park
Before settlers came, the Outer Banks were covered in sand dunes of varying sizes.
Nearly all of them were leveled and developed.
Eventually there was
Jocky's Ridge, first dune
The first dune in Jocky's Ridge, showing the plants that keep the dunes stabilized only one large set of dunes left,
Jockey’s Ridge.
This dune system is in fact the largest on the east coast.
Locals loved to play on the dunes, hang gliding, sliding down on boards, and jumping in them (no word about sandcastles).
When a developer announced plans to build housing, local preservationists swung into action.
They eventually persuaded the state to buy the site, which is now a state park.
The park has a small museum on the dune ecology, a hand gliding school, and several trails through the dunes.
A word of warning: Whatever one wears in this environment will get thoroughly coated in sand.
Going barefoot is not an option, both because the sand is very hot and the area is home to something usually associated with the southwest, prickly pear cactus.
I wore outdoor sandals, and washed them thoroughly afterwards.
Another word of warning: Once on the dunes, everything will look the same.
This produces a wonderful disorientation effect, but is also really painful for getting back.
Find landmarks when first on the dunes, and match them up to the park map in order
Jocky's Ridge, main dune
The main dune at Jocky's Ridge. To give an idea of the size, the little dots on the upper right are people on the dune. to get back.
The main trail first goes through
grass and scrubby trees.
These are the plants that first colonize a dune.
They have very long roots for reaching water.
As the park signs point out, it’s very important to leave these plants alone; they are all that prevents the dune from blowing away!
Soon, the trail climbs.
It’s steep, sandy, and really hard on the thighs.
This ridge is just the warm up.
At the top, the real dune emerges.
It seems to blot out half the view.
The vegetation disappears at this point.
The next climb feels strange, because there is absolutely no sights to track progress; the view never changes.
Near the top, the sand seems to just drop away and the bay beyond appears.
The view from here is even better than the one from Kitty Hawk.
Like most people, I turned around at this point, although it’s possible to climb down the other side and reach the bay.
Fort Raleigh
My last site of the day was one shrouded in myth,
Ft. Raleigh.
Located on Roanoke
View from main dune
View from the main dune of Jocky's Ridge, looking southwest. Island, it’s the site of the legendary lost first English colony.
Alarmed by Spanish conquest of Central America, the English king gave
Walter Raleigh the rights to set up a colony in the new world.
His first exploration ship recommended the Outer Banks as the best place to settle (unlike the
mythic version, the settlers didn’t just blunder into their colony site).
The report had one fatally wrong detail, that the natives were friendly.
A George Pope led the settlement crew.
It lasted until they ran out of supplies.
When Francis Drake passed by on one of his many raiding missions, the settlers asked to go home with him.
He accepted (compare this with the
Jamestown colonists, and one gains a new appreciation for their leader James Smith).
A John White came back two years later with more colonists.
The original intention was to find the old site and then push on into the bay, but the settlers insisted on stopping.
This became the famous lost colony.
Some natives were friendly, but others attacked.
The settlers were forced to build a fort.
White left once again for England,
Fort Raleigh
Reconstruction of Fort Raleigh, the first English settlement in North America. promising to return with more people and supplies.
The
Spanish Armada attacked England soon afterward, so it took him years to get back.
When he did, the colony was
abandoned.
The only artifact was a log with the carved word “Crotoan”.
All sorts of mystical meaning has been attached to this, but it’s actually the name of a nearby island at the time (thanks to shifting sand, it has since been absorbed into Cape Hatteras).
The historic site has a small museum that lays out this history.
It’s currently located in a temporary trailer because the real visitors’ center is under renovation.
It also discusses the
archeology that was used to reconstruct the history.
Nobody knows where the actual settlement site is.
All researchers have found is the fort, which was located using ground penetrating radar.
A dig on the site found ancient charcoal, some coins, and Indian pottery.
The museum briefly discusses the islands later history, when it was a
camp for runaway slaves during the Civil War.
The reconstructed fort lies in the woods a distance from the museum.
Along the way is a stone monument
Virginia Dare monument
Monument commemorating the birth of Virginia Dare, the first English (and Protestant) child born in North America. commemorating the first English child,
Virginia Dare, born in the New World.
It was erected by a local church, because the child was the first Protestant christened in America (the Spanish and French settlers, of course, were Catholic).
The fort itself is surprisingly small and low.
The settlers created it by digging a squarish trench and throwing the dirt into piles to create a wall.
After the fort, I had a long drive through eastern North Carolina.
This part of the state is flat as a pancake, swampy, and rather pretty.
Much of it is used for tobacco farming.
Unfortunately, I also had to pass an example of more obnoxious North Carolina agriculture.
The state is the second largest source of chicken meat in the US, and many of them are raised on
factory farms.
I smelled it long before I passed it.
Soon enough long rows of grey buildings appeared in the distance.
Think of a concentration camp for birds and one has the basic idea.
I was very happy to see that place in my rear view mirror.
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