Orville Wright

Awards & Honours

Awards Won

Honours

Records

Orville Wright's honours are unusual in that most of them attach to a single twelve-second event. The Congressional Gold Medal came in 1909, six years after the flight, and was awarded to the brothers jointly. His induction into the National Inventors Hall of Fame, again shared with Wilbur, recognised the three-axis control system that every subsequent aircraft has used in some form.The broader distinction is harder to quantify. National Aviation Day, proclaimed in 1939, falls on his birthday. The Wright Brothers National Memorial at Kill Devil Hills marks the ground where the flights took place, and the 1903 Flyer is among the most visited objects in the Smithsonian. Few engineers have a date in the calendar and a federal monument attached to their work.

AwardsOrville Wright received the Congressional Gold Medal with his brother Wilbur in 1909, the year their flying machine was accepted by the U.S. Army. Both brothers were inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. He also received honorary degrees and medals from American and European aeronautical societies in the years after the 1908 demonstration flights.

Honours & Distinctions

Congressional Gold Medal

United States Congress·1909

Awarded jointly to Orville and Wilbur Wright for the invention of the flying machine.

National Inventors Hall of Fame

National Inventors Hall of Fame·1975

Inducted with Wilbur Wright for the three-axis control system and the first powered flight.

National Aviation Day

Presidential proclamation·1939

Established by Franklin D. Roosevelt to fall on Orville Wright's birthday, August 19.

Wright Brothers National Memorial

National Park Service·1927

Memorial at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, marking the site of the 1903 flights.

Records & Feats

First powered, sustained, controlled flight of a heavier-than-air machine

Historic First·1903

Orville Wright piloted the Wright Flyer for 12 seconds over 120 feet at Kill Devil Hills on December 17, 1903, the first flight of its kind on record.

First aircraft capable of repeated controlled flights

Career Milestone·1905

The Wright Flyer III, developed with Wilbur, made dozens of controlled circuits and landings in 1905, the first practical airplane.

First soaring endurance record in a Wright glider

Aviation Record·1911

Orville stayed aloft nine minutes and forty-five seconds in the 1911 Wright glider at Kitty Hawk, a record for the design.