A HUNDRED years ago next Wednesday, at a little after half past ten in the morning, a rickety contraption made of canvas, wood and wire began sliding along a rail on a freezing, gale-lashed sand flat in North Carolina. As its home-made petrol engine turned the machine’s two propellers, it gained speed and its wings began to generate lift. As that force increased and overcame the craft’s weight, Orville and Wilbur Wright’s Flyer took to the air.
With the success of that first powered, heavier-than-air, controlled flight – all 12 seconds of it – it would be tempting to think…
