page_title: Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina
section_title: Transportation
hierarchical_section_title: Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina / Transportation
caption_attribution_description: English: The first powered, controlled, sustained airplane flight in history. Orville Wright, age 32, is at the controls of the machine, lying prone on the lower wing with hips in the cradle which operated the wing-warping mechanism. His brother, Wilbur Wright, age 36, ran alongside to help balance the machine, having just released his hold on the forward upright of the right wing. The starting rail, the wing-rest, a coil box, and other items needed for flight preparation are visible behind the machine. (Orville Wright preset the camera and had John T. Daniels squeeze the rubber bulb, tripping the shutter.) This image was restored by User:Wright Stuf in November, 2018 using GIMP.
context_page_description: Kill Devil Hills is a town in Dare County, North Carolina. The population was 6,683 at the 2010 census, up from 5,897 in 2000. It is the most populous settlement in both Dare County and on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. The Kill Devil Hills Micropolitan Statistical Area is part of the larger Virginia Beach-Norfolk, VA-NC Combined Statistical Area.
  The town is home to the site of the Wright brothers' first controlled, powered airplane flights on December 17, 1903, chosen for its good winds. The town was commemorated by the Wright Brothers National Memorial, which was dedicated in 1932. At the time of the Wright Flyer flights the town of Kill Devil Hills did not exist, and it did not receive its municipal charter until 1953. Kitty Hawk, popularly noted as the site of the famous flights, is approximately four miles to the north, and was the nearest settlement at the time of the famous flight.
context_section_description: First Flight Airport (IATA: FFA, ICAO: KFFA, FAA LID: FFA) is a public use airport which is owned by the National Park Service and located one mile west of Kill Devil Hills.
  First Flight Airport covers an area of 40 acres at an elevation of 13 feet (4 m) above mean sea level. It has one runway — designated 2/20 — with an asphalt surface measuring 3,000 by 60 feet (914 by 18 m). For the 12-month period ending August 19, 2009, the airport had 38,120 aircraft operations, an average of 104 per day: 97% general aviation, 3% air taxi, and <1% military.
  The airport is notable for being the site of hundreds of pre-flight gliding experiments carried out by the Wright brothers. The U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission chose First Flight Airport as one of the stops for the National Air Tour 2003.
caption: In 1903 the Wright Brothers flew the first airplane, the Wright Flyer, from land now part of Kill Devil Hills
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