Exploring Flight and Design celebrates the world of aviation — from its very beginnings to today’s aircraft industry, to flight found in nature, and more!

Start your adventures in flight with the legacy of the Wright brothers’ landmark first powered flights on Dec.17, 1903.

• Follow their personal history including who and what influenced them to become icons in flight.
• Lie on a horizontal simulator and soar over a recreation of the dunes and shorelines of Kitty Hawk, N.C., just as Orville and Wilbur Wright once did.
• Experiment with other principles of flight using a wind tunnel and 1903-era propellers.

Then, fast-forward into the present as you experience how much has been accomplished in the aeronautics field in such a relatively short period of time.

• Test your flight skills as you climb aboard a modern flight simulator equipped with actual flight training programs.
• Aim a real airplane propeller on a wall of shimmering metal discs to create 40-foot tall wind patterns.
• Try your hand at creating your own paper airplane and give it a test flight.
• Examine an airplane’s black box and discover how these devices were developed.