The Kite

A father, a child and a red-and-yellow diamond high over a hill, with the string running down to small hands.

Orville and Wilbur Wright started with something similar. In 1878, their father, Bishop Milton Wright, brought home a toy for his two younger sons, a small helicopter of paper, bamboo and cork with a rubber band to spin its rotor. The boys flew it until it broke and then built their own. Both later pointed to it as the start of their interest in flight.

By 1899 the kites were working tools. On July 27 of that year the brothers tested a biplane kite with a five-foot wingspan to see whether twisting the wings could control it, the idea known as wing warping. Four years later, on December 17, 1903, they made the first powered, controlled flights at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the longest lasting 59 seconds.

The picture is soft watercolor in pale blue, yellow and cream. A man in a blue shirt stands on a grassy rise with one arm pointed at the sky, a child in red beside him, and the little kite rides a cloud at upper left.