NOVA presents the story of Orville and Wilbur Wright, who invented the first powered airplane to achieve sustained, controlled flight. The program chronicles the brothers' lives from their first job running a bike shop to their invention of the airplane, relates the duo's pursuit of manned flight and their resolve to develop a workable aircraft, shows how information was obtained on experiments by previous innovators, looks at the obstacles to manned flight that the brothers tackled, explains how lift occurs with an airfoil, describes the first powered flight and looks at improvements the brothers made to their first design, discusses the measures the brothers took to protect their invention and keep their designs secret, and follows a modern-day team building and flying reproductions of the Wright brothers' gliders and powered planes. Features interviews with the world's foremost Wright experts.
This program contains a Described Video for the Visually Impaired track.