This Land, Your Land

The National Park Service will waive entrance fees at Wright Brothers National Memorial Thursday as it celebrates the 106th anniversary of the first heavier-than-air powered flight.

Ceremonies honoring the accomplishments of Wilbur and Orville Wright at Kill Devil Hills will include a wreath-laying at 8:30 a.m. During the formal program that follows, Amanda Wright Lane of Dayton, Ohio, will speak in tribute to her great-granduncles Wilbur and Orville Wright.

The visitor center will open at 8 a.m.

The annual aircraft fly-by will commence at 10:35 a.m. - the documented exact moment of the Wrights’ first flight on December 17, 1903.

Dr. Tom Crouch, senior curator at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum will provide a tribute to Lieutenants Frederick E. Humphreys and Frank P. Lahm, this year’s inductees to the Paul E. Garber First Flight Shrine. Humphreys and Lahm were the first military pilots trained by Wilbur Wright at College Park, Md., in 1909, marking the beginning of military aviation.

The normal entrance fee at the Wright Brothers Memorial is $4 for ages 16 and older. Younger visitors get in free.