My mom, who lives in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina just a stone’s throw from the spot where the Wright Brothers made their historic flight, tells me that a test flight of a replica of the flyer crashed yesterday. There were no injuries, but the flyer was damaged.
CNN points out that the same thing happened to the Wright Brothers shortly before their flight.
Things down there at the Outer Banks are frenzied right now, getting ready for the First Flight Centennial. My stepfather is busy installing banks of phone lines at the site for all the dignitaries set to attend; my mother is dealing with tourists asking silly questions, and everyone is hawking tickets to the event, which are fetching huge prices. I’d probably be more annoyed than anything else if I were there; my mother’s street will be closed during the festivities, so she and everyone else living behind the Wright Brothers Memorial will be more or less stranded back there until it’s all over.
