Every day two million people board airliners in the United States.  Some of them are flying to a nearby city, others to the far side of the world.  Passenger air travel has become commonplace in our daily lives.  It all began 100 years ago, on May 14, 1908, at Wright Brothers National Memorial, when Charles Furnas, the Wright brothers’ mechanic, became the world’s first airplane passenger.

The brothers had made the world’s first airplane flights on December 17, 1903, in the shadow of a low range of dunes known as the Kill Devil Hills, four miles south of the little fishing village of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina.  On the best of those flights, Wilbur flew 852 feet in 59 seconds.  With success in hand, the Wrights spent the years 1904 and 1905 continuing their work in a pasture near their home in Dayton, Ohio, improving their design and increasing their time in the air. On October 5, 1905, Wilbur Wright flew 30 circles over that Ohio pasture in their third powered airplane, covering 24.5 miles and remaining aloft for over 39 minutes.

The process of invention was complete. The next step was to market their revolutionary flying machine. In the spring of 1908, after repeated trips to Europe and protracted negotiations with the U.S. government, the Wrights were at last ready for the first public demonstrations of their airplane. That summer, Wilbur would travel to France to show the Europeans what their craft could do, while Orville demonstrated the machine to U.S. Army officials at Ft. Myer, Virginia.

The brothers had not flown since the fall of 1905. Before they faced the public, they had to brush up their flying skills, accustom themselves to a new upright seating arrangement and new controls, and try flying with a passenger for the first time, something both their American and French contracts required. They rebuilt their 1905 airplane with upright seats and the new controls and traveled back to the North Carolina dunes, where the flying conditions were ideal.

The brothers made the first flight from their old campsite near Kitty Hawk on May 1, 1908. By May 14, they were at last ready to venture aloft with a passenger. At 8 a.m., Wilbur took Charlie Furnas up for a hop that covered only 656 feet. Orville kept him aloft longer on the second try. The world’s first passenger flight lasted just over four minutes. Not a very impressive performance by modern standards, but it was enough. The age of air transport was underway. 

Tom D. Crouch

National Air and Space Museum

Smithsonian Institution