High school students build first aircraft at Wright Brothers' historic site

On December 17, 1903, Orville Wright became the first person to fly a powered aircraft. On December 17, 2025—exactly 122 years later—a team of high school students unveiled the first plane built at that same spot since then.

The aircraft, constructed by graduates of First Flight High School's Aviation Program in North Carolina, represents two years of meticulous work. More than 100 people gathered at Kill Devil Hills near Kitty Hawk to witness the unveiling, including Paul Wright-Jameson, a great-great-nephew of Wilbur and Orville Wright.

"It's heartwarming that people take enough seriousness about the project to come here," Wright-Jameson said. His family has visited Kitty Hawk for decades, drawn by the story of his ancestors' achievement. Now that legacy has a new chapter written by teenagers and young adults who spent two years assembling thousands of parts in a workshop at the Wright Brothers National Memorial.

From Wooden Crates to Flight

Retired US Navy Rear Admiral Joey JT Tynch, who instructed the program, watched the students transform raw materials into a functional aircraft. "All these young men and women for the rest of their lives can say they built the first aircraft on this spot since the Wright Brothers," he said. "They embraced that, and they just ran with it."

The students began with wooden crates of components and methodically assembled them over time. The aircraft contains thousands of individual parts, each one placed by hand. What started as an ambitious school project became something larger—a direct continuation of the work that changed aviation forever.

The team plans to fly the completed aircraft in 2026, giving the project its final validation. Until then, the unveiling itself marks a quiet but significant moment: a new generation has proven they can build on the foundations laid by pioneers more than a century ago, in the exact location where it all began.