8. First Flyer‘s Final Flight

Gemini Sparkle

Key Takeaways:

  • Orville Wright, the first person to fly a powered heavier-than-air craft, made his final flight as a passenger in 1944 at age 73, riding with Howard Hughes aboard a Lockheed Constellation.
  • He died four years later, in 1948, at the age of 77 from a heart attack.
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In 1944, the first person to fly a powered heavier-than-air craft made one last flight, hopping a ride with Howard Hughes aboard a Lockheed Constellation. Orville Wright was 73 years old. (His brother Wilbur had died in 1912 of typhoid fever.) Four years after his literal final sortie, Orville took his figurative last flight, dying of a heart attack at the age of 77. 

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