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The first flight ever made by man was made upon the machine now exhibited for the first time on the occasion of the dedication of the new buildings of The Massachusetts Institute Of Technology. On December 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright made four successful flights with this machine. The first lasted only twelve seconds, a flight very modest compared with those of to-day, but it was, nevertheless, the first in the history of the world in which a machine carrying a man had raised itself into the air in free flight. The second and third flights were a little longer; the fourth lasted fifty-nine seconds, covering a distance of 852 feet over the ground against the twenty-mile wind. The Wrights continued their experiments in 1904 and 1905 with another machine, and increase the time to 38 minutes and the distance to over 24 miles.
     When the report of these flights went abroad, sportsmen and scientists the world over feverishly took up the subject of human flight; but it was not until nearly five years that these first flights of December 17, 1903, were equaled by others then the Wright brothers themselves, then only on a machine based upon drawings of the early right machines published in 1904 in France. It is interesting to note that every practical flying machine of to-day uses the system of control invented and employed by the Wright brothers in his first machine of 1903.
     After the last flight on December 17, 1903, while standing unguarded on the ground, the machine was struck by a sudden gust of wind, which lifted it from the ground, and rolled it over and over. The rudders were badly damaged, and some other parts broken; but the machine has suffered most from going through the flood that swept through Dayton in 1913. The greater part of the machine, still in the boxes in which it was shipped from Kitty Hawk to Dayton, lay several weeks in the water and mud.
     In assembling the machine for exhibition at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, front and rear rudders had to be almost entirely rebuilt. The cloth in the main cross spars of the upper and lower center sections of the wings also had to be made new. A number of other parts had to be repaired, but most of the other parts, excepting the motor, are the original parts used in 1903. The motor now in the machine is a close copy of the 1903 motor, but was built about a year later and developed much more power than the original one. The motor in 1903 developed only 10 to 12 horse power. The parts of the 1903 motor are still at hand, excepting the crankshaft and fly-wheel. These were loaned some years ago for exhibition at one of the aeronautical shows, and cannot now be found.