FAQs: Film Archives

Do you have film of the Wright Brothers' first flight?
No - because it does not exist. No motion picture film was shot of the Wright Brothers' first successful flight at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 1903. The earliest motion picture footage of a Wright aircraft in flight shows the Wright Type A undergoing military trials at Fort Myer, Virginia either in 1908 or 1909.

Where can I buy a copy of the film Powers of Ten?
Powers of Ten (1968), a scientific film essay by Charles and Ray Eames, is available from Pyramid Media.

Do you have a copy of that film with the wacky old aircraft? Those guys are contemporaries of the Wright Brothers, right?
Despite its frequent use in documentary films as an illustration of unsuccessful aircraft designs which preceded the Wright Brothers' successful 1903 Flyer, the film entitled Aeronautical Oddities in the News (circa 1948) is a compilation of newsreel film clips dating from the mid-1930s. Duplicate copies of this film are not available from the NASM Archives.

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