I was sitting beside the pilot of a single-engine airplane no bigger than an SUV, flying from Norfolk, Virginia, to Manteo, North Carolina.     

"There's Kitty Hawk," the pilot pointed to the forward right. "And the clearing next to the airstrip is the Wright Brothers Memorial."

Until then, I hadn't given Kitty Hawk any thought. I was going to North Carolina's Outer Banks to enjoy the rugged Atlantic coastline and admire an assortment of lighthouses. But the seed had been planted.

A few days later, I found myself climbing through an early morning mist to the top of a stabilized sand dune known as Big Kill Devil Hill so I could get a closer look at the 60-foot-high gray granite monument to Wilbur and Orville Wright.           

The monument is only part of the Wright Brothers National Memorial, the 425-acre site where the brothers recorded the first successful manned flight of a powered heavier-than-air machine on December 17, 1903. Their Wright Flyer, with Orville at the controls, actually made four successful flights that day. A boulder designates the take-off point, and numbered markers indicate the distances. Near the flight path are replicas of the brothers' rustic 1903 camp buildings, one used as a hangar and the other as a combination workshop and living quarters.

As a frequent passenger on today's commercial jets, I began to feel a sense of awe at the magnitude of what

the Wrights' four short flights represented. Self-consciously, I glanced at other visitors who had come to the site and realized that many were viewing it with something near reverence.

In the modern Visitor Center, I joined a standing-room-only crowd of about 120 people around a reproduction of the 1903 Wright Flyer, while a National Park Service ranger explained how the brothers had developed their concepts and how their spindly looking contraption worked.

The ranger's presentation answered a number of my questions. The Wrights made more than a thousand glider flights from the top of Big Kill Devil Hill before ever attempting a powered flight. They chose the Kitty Hawk area for their experiments because it offered reliable winds to provide lift and a long stretch of sand to soften landings. Their primary source of income was building and repairing bicycles in Dayton, Ohio.

Dayton, Ohio? I was scheduled to visit Dayton, Ohio, in just a few weeks. And I was hooked.

Seventeen days later, in an older neighborhood west of downtown Dayton, I stood before a small red brick building with a sign proclaiming it "The Wright Cycle Co." Crowding into the building's interior with a dozen other people, I listened to another National Park Service ranger explain that this was where the brothers began to consider the possibility of manned powered flight. Their interest was captured by two events in 1896: the death in a gliding accident of German inventor Otto Lilienthal, and the launching of powered models by American aeronautical pioneer Samuel Langley.

After their initial success at Kitty Hawk, the Wright brothers dared to dream that their flying machine might eventually be used for exploring isolated places, for carrying mail, for recreation or even for military purposes. But in order to spend more time refining the equipment and learning to control it, they needed to find a testing ground near Dayton.

In early 1904, Torrence Huffman, a banker and family friend, offered to let them use his 100-acre pasture for free, provided that they always kept the gates closed to prevent the cattle and horses from wandering away. Along the pasture's northern border was the track of the electric interurban rail system, with trolleys passing every 30 minutes, making it convenient for the Wrights to transport themselves and supplies to what became known as the

Huffman Prairie Flying Field.

I caught my first glimpse of the field, now part of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, from another Wright Memorial, a 17-foot shaft of pink North Carolina marble in a park atop Wright Brothers Hill. My guide, the base historian, took me to the edge of the 100-foot bluff and pointed out the small clearing almost obscured by trees.

We entered the base at Gate 12A off State Route 444, drove through a cluster of official looking buildings, and turned into the open field that is a National Historic Landmark. Here, there is little to see (reconstructions of the Wrights' 1905 hangar and the catapult launching device that assisted in take-off), but there is much to think about, as my guide explained.

Huffman Prairie Flying Field is where the Wrights mastered powered flight, learning to bank, turn and circle their aircraft at will. It is where they determined what changes were needed (such as wheels and stronger engines) to make their aircraft commercially viable.

In 1908, the brothers sold an airplane to the newly established Aeronautical Division of the U.S. Army Signal Corps, and sales in England, France and Germany soon followed. As a result, they established a new aviation corporation with two branches at Huffman Prairie.

The first was the Wright Exhibition Company, which flew airplanes at county fairs, speed races and other public events where potential customers might gather. The second was the Wright School of Aviation, which operated from 1910 through 1916.

The school's 10-day course included "four hours of actual practice in the air and such instruction in the principles of flying machines as is necessary to prepare the pupil to become a competent and expert operator." Tuition was $250 per pupil and included any incidental "breakage to the machine."

The school trained 119 pilots. Most were civilians, but some were U.S. Army and Navy personnel.    My final stop at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base was the U.S. Air Force Museum, which displays more than 300 aircraft depicting the history of the Air Force from the beginning of flight to the present. One exhibit is a battered 1911 Wright Modified "B" Flyer, the first model produced in quantity by the brothers' corporation. Another is an exact reproduction of the first airplane delivered to the Signal Corps, the 1909 Wright Military Flyer.

As I studied the museum's collection of Wright memorabilia, a museum guide pointed out a document that he knew would interest me, the original letters of patent for "an alleged new and useful improvement in Flying Machines" issued to the brothers in 1906.

Looking at a vintage photo of Orville piloting an early machine, the guide recalled meeting the brothers' niece in her later years. "She told me of her first flight when she was 12. No seat belt. Just wrapped her skirt around her legs and held on," he said. "I asked her if she'd been afraid, and she said 'Of course not. I was with Uncle Orv'."

But I already had come to realize that, in pioneering manned flight, the Wright brothers also inspired a broad sense of confidence and courage that changed the world in a more subtle way, reinforcing the belief that nothing is impossible.