Invention of the Airplane

Hello. My name is Orville, and I have a wonderful brother named Wilbur. When we were little boys, our father gave us a very special toy. It was a little helicopter made of paper and wood. It could spin and whirl and fly up to the ceiling. Wow. We loved watching it fly. It made us dream a big, big dream. Wilbur and I looked at the birds soaring in the sky and said, 'We want to do that too.' We wanted to build a machine that could fly high in the air, just like a bird. That little toy started our amazing adventure.

Wilbur and I had a shop where we fixed bicycles. But soon, our shop was filled with wood, cloth, and big ideas for our flying machine. We called it the Flyer. We drew pictures of it and built it with our own hands. It had long, wide wings, just like a big bird. We also gave it a little engine that went rumble, rumble, rumble. It was hard work. Sometimes our ideas didn't work at all. We would try something, and it would flop. But we never gave up. We just helped each other and tried again. We knew that if we worked together, our dream could come true.

Then, the big day came. It was a chilly, windy day on December 17, 1903. It was my turn to fly. I lay down on the wing of our Flyer. The little engine rumbled and roared. The propellers started to spin. The Flyer began to move along a track, and then... whoosh. I felt a lift. We were off the ground. I was flying. I was really flying. For 12 whole seconds, I soared through the air like a bird. Our dream came true. We did it.