A remarkable story filled with dreamers, inventors, scoundrels, and pioneering pilots, First to Fly recounts North Carolina`s significant role in the early history of aviation. Beginning well before the Wright brothers` first powered flight at Kill Devil Hill in 1903, North Carolinians labored at the cutting edge of aviation technology from the late 1800s through World War I. North Carolina was a launching ground for real and imaginary ballooning adventures as early as 1789. Powered experiments, including what seems to have been America`s first airplane, gained momentum in the late nineteenth century. Tar Heel mechanics and inventors also built a dirigible and, arguably, the world`s first successful helicopter. Tom Parramore`s account of the Wrights` experiments and turn-of-the-century Dare County provides new information on the crucial role of Outer Bankers in ensuring the Wrights` success. Without this aid, he argues, it is unlikely that the miracle of flight would have first been achieved in 1903--or in America. After 1903, growth in the new aviation industry, spurred by World War I, outpaced North Carolina`s ability to play a major role. But the state produced some of the most notable airmen and women of the era, furnishing hundreds of pilots to the war effort.