Happy birthday, soaring. The "first" soaring flight was the 9 minutes and
45 seconds of hovering over Kitty Hawk dunes by Orville Wright, in the
Wright "No. 5" glider on October 24, 1911. This was no milestone on the way
to powered flight, "started" on December 17, 1903 (by Orville also, with
brother Wilbur). By then, Bleriot had flown the English channel, major
airshows had taken place, the Wright aeroplane company was filling plenty of
orders. Yet Orville went soaring. Beating this first FAI glider duration
record took almost 10 years (Wolf Klemperer, 8/30/21, 13:03 min) and was a
major motivation for the Wasserkuppe meetings.