1903 Wright Flyer by cliff1066™ on Flickr

This is a very rare second post of the day. I wanted to post this before I posted that other article about the A380, but it almost seems appropriate to have both these posts on here together on the same day, let me tell you why.

Today, December 17 is the anniversary of the Wright brother’s first flight in Kitty Hawk. If you take the time to follow the link and listen to the report from NPR, there was a 3rd Wright sibling, Katherine Wright, that has been forgotten by time.

Katherine Wright, Orville and Wilbur’s sister, was apparently a big financial and scientific backer of the Wright brothers in their quest to be the first to fly. Apparently, Orville got angry with Katherine because, egads! she wanted to get married.

Long story short, Orville did what he could to keep her out of the limelight and keep her contributions hidden.

So, having said all that, it seems appropriate to me that in the video of the A380, it’s a woman doing the flying.

Pretty cool, n’est pas?

Edited 12/17/2010 to embed the npr audio and add the Wright flyer photo