This song is available on Jonathan Sprout's More American Heroes.

ORVILLE & WILBUR WRIGHT (1871-1948)(1867-1912) achieved one of humanity’s wildest dreams when they flew the first self-powered airplane. For years these self-taught engineers, who designed and made bicycles for a living, experienced failure after failure in the tedious testing of kites and gliders, but they continued to believe in the impossible -- that humans could fly.      With courage, perseverance, teamwork and faith in the scientific method, the Wright Brothers eventually achieved the dream of flight on the windy sands of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina in 1903.

“When my brother and I began experimenting (with flight) in 1900 it was purely for the pleasure of it. We did not expect to get back a cent of the money we spent.” -- Wilbur Wright

On the windswept outer banks of Carolina
Where the sand dunes seem to stretch to the sky,
There were two men at the turn of the Century
Determined to learn how to fly.

On a cold gusty day in December,
They let their invention roll free.....

REFRAIN:
When they flew,
They had the future in their eyes.
When they flew,
They were captains of the skies.
When their dream came true,
The whole world knew
Of Wilbur and Orville, when they flew.

It isn’t easy to imagine how they did it
With failures every step of the way.....

In the end, it was hard work and persistence
That began with a dream and a kite.
All the years of devotion they set into motion
That made them the first in flight.

REFRAIN

And after all these years,
Time and again,
I hear a plane go by and remember...

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