"Wright Brothers Monument on National Aviation Day 2013" by U.S. National Park Service , public domain
Wright BrothersJunior Ranger |
Junior Flight Ranger Activity Book for Wright Brothers National Memorial (NMEM) in North Carolina. Published by the National Park Service (NPS).
featured in
National Parks Pocket Maps | ||
North Carolina Pocket Maps |
National Park Service
U.S. Department of the Interior
Wright Brothers National Memorial
Junior Flight Ranger Activity Book
Welcome to Wright Brothers
National Memorial!
Complete the pages and activities
for your age group and attend a
ranger program to become a
Junior Flight Ranger!
Ages 6 and under: Pages 1-3.
Ages 7-11: Pages 1-7.
Ages 12 and up: Pages 1 & 5-14.
What did you learn?
If a ranger program is offered during your visit, attend the program and then draw
or write one thing you learned from the program.
Protecting Special Places
Each item on the National Park Service arrowhead
symbolizes something that the National Park Service was
created to protect. The SEQUOIA TREE and BISON
represent plants and wildlife. The MOUNTAIN and LAKE
represent scenery and places for recreation. The shape of
the ARROWHEAD represents culture, history, and
archeology.
What do you think is
worth protecting?
Use your imagination
to design your own
arrowhead filled with
things you want to
protect!
1
Kitty Hawk Bingo
As you walk throughout the park, look for these items. When you see one, circle it.
Find three in a row or all four corners to complete the activity.
First Flight Plaque
Monument
Reproduction 1903 Flyer
Reconstructed Hangar
NPS Arrowhead
A Bird
Orville Wright
American Flag
Flight Marker
2
Let’s Go Camping
Visit the reconstructed camp building and hangar from 1903. On the left is the hangar
where the Wright Flyer was stored to protect it from the wind, sand, and harsh weather
of the Outer Banks. On the right is a workshop and living quarters where Wilbur and
Orville slept, made meals, and worked on their machines.
Take a look inside the buildings, and imagine what it would have been like to stay here
with Wilbur and Orville during their years in Kitty Hawk. Think of three items you
would bring with you from home and explain why.
1.
2.
3.
Bonus! What do you think camp life was like for Wilbur and Orville? Would you want
to live in these same conditions, why or why not?
3
Parts of a Flyer
Use the image and descriptions below to label the parts of the 1903 Wright Flyer. If
you get stuck, look at the park brochure or visit the Flight Room to see a reproduction
of the flyer.
1. _____
2. ____
3. _____
5. ____
4. _____
A. The rudder controls the yaw, or right and left movement, of the aircraft from the
back of the flyer.
B. Wilbur and Orville designed propellers for the back of their flyer to provide the
thrust they needed to get into the air. They dismissed the idea of a propeller as an
“air screw,” like a ship propeller, and instead saw it as a wing that rotates.
C. The bracing wires enforce the separate parts of the flyer ensuring that the more
fragile wooden parts would not easily break during flight.
D. The wings, made of Muslin Cotton, were designed using the information Wilbur
and Orville gathered from their extensive wind tunnel testing.
E. The elevator controls the pitch. This helps the flyer go up or down during flight.
4
The Wright Timeline
Wilbur and Orville visited the Outer Banks for a few years before their first flight.
Create a timeline of Wilbur and Orville’s flying experiments by matching the
letter of the following events with the years when they took place.
Hint: Use the pictures of the flying machines below the dates to help you figure out
what happened when.
1899 ——
1900 ——
1901 ——
1902 ——
1903 ——
A. Wilbur and Orville tested their first glider in the strong winds of Kitty Hawk.
B. On the morning of December 17, 1903 the Wright brothers made the first
successful power driven flight in world history in their Wright Flyer.
C. This glider was the first to use a moveable tail called a rudder. This allowed them to
control the yaw (side to side motion) and perform a full turn. They tested it 1000 times!
D. Wilbur and Orville first began their journey by testing a small kite in Dayton, Ohio.
E. This was the second glider the Wright brothers built and it had many problems with
lift and control.
5
Going the Distance
Today, the historic location where Wilbur and Orville
made the first flights is marked by the First Flight
Boulder and Flight Line.
The boulder marks where the first flight took off and
the numbered stones of the flight line mark the
distance of each flight.
Take a walk along the path of the first four
flights, and at each landing marker find the
information you need to finish the chart below.
Flight
Distance
Time
Pilot
#1
120 feet
_________
________
#2
_________
12 seconds
________
#3
_________
_________
Orville
#4
_________
59 seconds
________
Now that you’ve found the times and distances of the flights, let’s talk about speed!
Airspeed is the speed of an airplane in relation to the wind around it. You can find
the airspeed by adding the ground speed and the speed of the wind together.
The speed of the 1st flight over the ground was only 6.8 mph. However, Wilbur and
Orville flew directly into a wind that was blowing at about 27 mph. What was their
airspeed?
___________________________________________________
Remember: Ground Speed + Speed of the wind = Air Speed
Bonus! Are you faster than the Wright Flyer? Have someone record your time. Sprint
as fast as you can from the boulder to the first marker. Use your sprint time to find the
difference from the time of the first flight.
How much faster are you than the first flight?
6
____________________________________
Monument to a Dream
Finished in 1932, the Wright Brothers Monument on
Kill Devil Hill was built to remember Wilbur and Orville
Wright and all that they accomplished.
The monument sits on a star base and the monument
itself is designed to look like bird wings. At the top of
the monument is a beacon that shines at night to light
the way for aviators. Do you think this monument is
fitting for the first people to fly?
Who is someone you think deserves a monument? Why?
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
___________________________________________________________________
Draw your own monument for that person in the space below!
7
Fables of Flight
The doors to the Wright Brothers Monument contain eight bronze panels that tell the
stories of human’s attempt to fly. Read the stories that each image represents and
complete the doors by drawing the panels that are left blank.
1.The study of
bird wings
influenced the
Wrights early
flying attempts.
5. The Wright
brothers invented
a unique design
for modern
propellers to
achieve forward
thrust.
2. A locksmith
thought he could
fly by attaching
paddles to his
arms and legs
and jumping from
chairs.
6. In Greek
mythology, Icarus
attempted to fly by
using wax to
attach feathers to
his arms, but he
flew to close to
the sun.
3. Early gliding
experiments
inspired the
Wrights to
explore
problems of
controlled flight.
7. A Phoenix, a
mythological bird,
rose into the sky.
4. A philosopher
believed he could
add water to
bags attached to
a sail, and they
would lift him into
the sky when
heated by the
sun.
8. Kites were
used by the
Wright brothers
during early experiments of lift
and control.
8
Support from Family and Friends
Wilbur and Orville Wright had to overcome many hardships and problems to achieve
success. Through trust in one another and very supportive family and friends, from
both Dayton and the Outer Banks, they were able to overcome all obstacles and
achieve their dream of flight.
Match the images below with descriptions of what each person or persons did
to help Wilbur and Orville.
A.
1. _____
Charles E. Taylor was initially hired to
work in the Wright brothers’ bicycle shop
in 1901. He helps Orville work out the
design for the flyer’s engine.
2. _____
Members of the Kill Devil Hill Life
Saving Station, trained to rescue
shipwrecked mariners, help the
Wright brothers launch the gliders and
flyer. One member, John T. Daniels,
even takes the famous photograph of the
first flight.
3. ____
Katharine Wright, Wilbur and Orville’s
younger sister, is a great source of support
and encouragement for her brothers and is
instrumental in getting Wilbur to accept a
chance to speak at a meeting of the
Western Society of Engineers. This helps
Wilbur and Orville gain back their
confidence after their second glider had
many problems with lift and control.
4. ____
Bill Tate is the postmaster of Kitty Hawk
and welcomes Wilbur to the Outer Banks.
His wife, Addie, loans her sewing machine
to the Wright brothers so they can sew the
cloth material on the wings.
B.
C.
D.
9
Wright Brothers Crossword
Using your brochure and the exhibits in the visitor center, fill in the blanks and
complete the crossword puzzle below.
The Wright brothers, (1.)_________mechanics, wanted to learn how to (2.)_______.
So they studied (3.) _____________and wrote the Smithsonian to get some expert
(4.)__________. In 1899, they built a (5.)_________ to test their ideas at home. Then
they built a (6.)___________and brought it to (7.)__________ to test it in the steady
(8.)___________of the Outer Banks. They used a (9.)_____________ to sew the
(10.)____________ wing coverings and ate (11↓.)____________ because food was
scarce in the Outer Banks. In 1901 they built a (12.)___________ to gain more
understanding of flight. Finally, the 1902 Glider was very successful, so they built a
(13.)_________ which succeeded when they flew on December 17, 1903. Before
their flight they asked John Daniels to take a picture with their (11→.)__________ of
the first famous flight. Today, we honor their hard work and efforts with a national park
and a (14.)__________ commemorating their achievements.
13
Word Bank
fly
glider
flyer
cloth
kite
birds
advice
monument
camera
winds
bicycle
‘wind tunnel’
‘Kitty Hawk’
‘canned goods’
‘sewing machine’
10
5
6
1
11
2
12
7
9
14
3
4
8
10
Like Riding a Bike
From their experiences at the cycle shop, Wilbur and
Orville understood that with a little practice a rider
could learn how to control and balance an unstable
bicycle. They believed that balance and control were
also the key to flying. However, control is much more
difficult for an airplane because it has to move freely
in three ways, called roll, pitch, and yaw, as opposed
to bicycles which move in only two directions.
Use the park brochure and Flight Room exhibits to fill in the blanks below.
Word bank: pitch, roll, yaw.
1. __________ allows the
airplane to tilt either left or right.
Though the Wright Flyer
controlled this with wing-warping,
planes today typically use
ailerons, flaps located on the
edge of the wings.
2. __________ is the up and
down movement of the nose of
the airplane. This is controlled by
the elevator.
3. __________ turns the nose of
the plane left or right. This is
controlled with a rudder that
pushes the tail either left or right
and turns the airplane.
11
Decoding History
Telegraphs were used to send electrical messages over long distances through wires
before the invention of telephones. A short signal is represented by a dot and a long
signal is represented by a dash. Stringing the dots and dashes together, words and
sentences are created that could be sent by wires across the country. This is called
Morse code. After their first flight, Wilbur and Orville sent a telegraph from Kitty Hawk
to their father in Dayton, Ohio.
Use the Morse code below to solve the important message they sent.
Morse Code:
Message:
A ._
B _...
C _._.
D _..
E.
F .._.
G _ _.
H ….
I ..
J ._ _ _
K _._
L ._..
M__
N _.
O___
P ._ _.
Q _ _._
R ._.
S…
T_
U .._
V …_
W ._ _
X _.._
Y _._ _
Z _ _..
...
.._
.._.
___
.._.
._..
_. _. _._.
.._
..
_ _.
.
…
…
….
_
…
._.
Think about a goal you have reached or something you’ve accomplished. What would
you want people to know? Create your own Morse code message below.
12
A Picture is Worth 1,000 Words
On the morning of December 17, 1903, Orville set up a camera
facing the spot where he thought the Wright Flyer would first fly.
Wilbur handed John T. Daniels a small bulb to activate the shutter.
Having never touched a camera, John was told to squeeze the
bulb if anything interesting happened! This is the famous
photograph that he took of the first flight.
C
F
E
A
D
B
Study the picture above and match the following items:
1.
The flyer slid down a 60-foot rail because it did not have wheels.
2.
A small dolly and a bicycle hub under the flyer acted as a set of wheels.
3.
A wooden bench was used to support the heavy wings before flight.
4.
They used a shovel to bury the rail in the sand and to dig an anchor.
5.
A battery provided the spark that was needed to start the engine.
6. __ A small can containing nails and a hammer were used for making minor repairs.
Bonus! Find and circle Wilbur's footprints and the outline of the flyer’s right wing in the
sand.
13
A Moment Carved in Time
Visit the December 17, 1903 Sculpture at the base of the hill and use the signs
to find the following answers:
1. What is the name of the sculptor?
2. Who donated the sculpture to the National Park Service?
3. What are the names of the five men who witnessed the first flight?
4. What profession did three of the witnesses share?
Bonus! Get a new perspective of the world and what the Wright brothers
accomplished – pose with Wilbur or Orville. Imagine the thrill of being the first to fly!
Describe your feelings in three words.
________________
__________________
14
_________________
Wright Brothers National Memorial
Junior Flight Ranger Pledge
As a Junior Flight Ranger, I promise to share my
experiences here with others.
I also promise to continue to explore, learn about,
and protect all National Parks.
This award certifies the recipient as an official Wright Brothers National Memorial Junior Flight Ranger.
Junior Ranger Name
Awarded by:
NPS Official Signature
Stamp
15