The truck, with the machine thereon, facing downhill, was fastened with a wire to the end of the starting track, so that it could not start until released by the pilot. The engine was started to make sure it was in proper condition. Two small boys, with a dog, who had come with the lifesavers, “made a hurried departure over the hill for home on hearing the engine start.” Each brother was eager for the chance to make the first trial, so a coin was tossed to determine which of them it should be; Wilbur won. Wilbur took his place as pilot while Orville held a wing to steady the machine during the run on the track. The restraining wire was released, the machine started forward quickly on the rail, leaving Orville behind. After a run of 35 or 40 feet, the airplane took off. Wilbur turned the machine up too suddenly after leaving the track, before it had gained enough speed. It climbed a few feet, stalled, and settled to the ground at the foot of the hill after being in the air just 3½ seconds. This trial was considered unsuccessful because the machine landed at a point at the base of the hill many feet lower than that from which it had started on the side of the hill. Wilbur wrote of his trial: [Illustration: Wilbur Wright in damaged machine near the base of Kill Devil Hill after unsuccessful trial of Dec. 14, 1903. Repairs were completed by the afternoon of December 16, but poor wind conditions prevented another trial until the following day.] [Illustration: Crew members of the Kill Devil Hills Life Saving Station, about 1900. In 1903, lifesavers from this station witnessed the attempt on December 14 and saw the successful flights of December 17.] However the real trouble was an error in judgment, in turning up too suddenly after leaving the track, and as the machine had barely speed enough for support already, this slowed it down so much that before I could correct the error, the machine began to come down, though turned up at a big angle. Toward the end it began to speed up again but it was too late, and it struck the ground while moving a little to one side, due to wind and a rather bad start. In landing, one of the skids and several other parts were broken, preventing a second attempt that day. Repairs were completed by noon of the 16th, but the wind was too calm to fly the machine that afternoon. The brothers, however, were confident of soon making a successful flight. “There is now no question of final success,” Wilbur wrote his father, though Langley had recently made two attempts to fly and had failed in both. “This did not disturb or hurry us in the least,” Orville commented on Langley’s attempts. “We knew that he had to have better scientific data than was contained in his published works to successfully build a man-carrying flying machine.” _December 17, 1903: The Day Man First Flew_