

12 Seconds Woodcut Heavyweight Tee
1903 Wright Flyer I · Comfort Colors 1717 · 6.1 oz 100% ring-spun garment-dyed cotton (Black, Pepper, Navy)

17 Dec 1903 · Kill Devil Hills, N.C. (not Kitty Hawk)
Not a sleepy museum gift shop. Woodcut linocut, 3-color risograph, 1927 Art Deco, 6-thread patch embroidery, and 1961 halftone pop art. Every airframe historically verified.

23 archive pieces


1903 Wright Flyer I · Comfort Colors 1717 · 6.1 oz 100% ring-spun garment-dyed cotton (Black, Pepper, Navy)


Canadair Sabre Mk 3 (F-86) · Comfort Colors 1717 · 6.1 oz garment-dyed heavyweight cotton (Pepper Charcoal, Black, Navy)


Mercury-Redstone 3 (Freedom 7) · Comfort Colors 1717 · 6.1 oz garment-dyed heavyweight cotton (White, Ivory, Khaki)


1911 Curtiss Model D Pusher · Comfort Colors 1717 · 6.1 oz garment-dyed heavyweight cotton (Ivory, White, Khaki)


Lockheed Vega 5B · Comfort Colors 1566 · 9.5 oz garment-dyed heavyweight fleece crewneck (True Navy, Pepper, White, Grey)


Lockheed Vega 5B · Lane Seven Nantucket Crewneck · Left-chest 6-color embroidery (Navy Blue)


Ryan NYP (Spirit of St. Louis) · Comfort Colors 1566 · 9.5 oz garment-dyed heavyweight fleece crewneck (True Navy, Pepper)


Lockheed Vega 5B · CornerStone 12 oz 100% cotton duck cloth work jacket with quilted lining · Left-chest embroidery (Duck Brown, Charcoal, Navy)


1911 Curtiss Model D Pusher · Archival museum-grade matte paper (12x12, 11x14, 16x16, 20x20, 18x24)


Ryan NYP (Spirit of St. Louis) · Archival museum-grade matte paper (12x12, 11x14, 16x16, 20x20, 18x24)


1903 Wright Flyer I · The dunes at Kill Devil Hills. Not the village of Kitty Hawk.The flights were on the dunes. Not in the village. In 1903 the nearest town was Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. That is where the mail went, and where the weather station sat. The camp, the glider hill, and the 17 December rail were south of it, on the sand hills called Kill Devil Hills. The town of that name did not exist yet. It was chartered on 6 March 1953. Gliders left the face of Big Kill Devil Hill. Powered flights left flat ground at the base of it. The National Park Service still marks the four landing points there, not on the Kitty Hawk village green. Unstructured dad cap. Place name as type. No monument, no arrowhead, no airplane.The storyEveryone says Kitty Hawk.The telegram went to Kitty Hawk. The Weather Bureau station was at Kitty Hawk. William Tate's letter that brought two Dayton bicycle men to the Outer Banks was written from Kitty Hawk. Wilbur and Orville used the name because it was the town. In 1903 it was the place you could point to on a map.The machine did not leave the ground in the village.The dunes south of Kitty Hawk were already called the Kill Devil Hills. Big Kill Devil Hill stood about a hundred feet of shifting sand. From 1900 through 1902 the brothers hauled gliders up that face and rode them down. Wing-warping. A forward elevator. Then a rudder that they learned, in October 1902, had to move. The hill taught them to fly. The National Park Service still says so. Gliders took off from the Kill Devil Hills. The 1932 granite shaft stands on that dune, now a stabilized 90-foot hill.Powered flight was a different geometry. The 1903 machine was too heavy to shove off a slope. They laid a rail on the flat beside their camp, at the base of the big hill, and ran four flights from that line on 17 December. Orville 120 feet. Wilbur 175. Orville 200. Wilbur 852. The stones that mark those ends sit in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina. The First Flight Boulder marks the start. The address of Wright Brothers National Memorial is Kill Devil Hills, not Kitty Hawk.The town itself is late. Kill Devil Hills received a municipal charter from the North Carolina General Assembly on 6 March 1953, fifty years after the flights. Until then there was no incorporated town on that sand. Kitty Hawk was the nearest settlement, about four miles north. That is why the world learned the wrong name and kept it. The brothers were not wrong to write Kitty Hawk on a letter. The caption is wrong when it puts the rail in the village.This cap is for the person who will correct that caption once, quietly, and then stop talking.The art is the place name. Kill Devil Hills. Unstructured crown, no snap of a mascot, no outline of the pylon, no National Park Service arrowhead. The monument is a monument. It is not a logo. The park is a park. It is not a brand partner. The fact is geographic. The flights were on the dunes at Kill Devil Hills.Wear it in Kitty Hawk if you want. The village is still there, still north, still the place the mail went. The sand you want is south.Print-on-demand. Typical production 2–7 business days, then carrier transit. Shipping · Returns.Sources: National Park Service, Wright Brothers National Memorial; Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum; Town of Kill Devil Hills.


1903 Wright Flyer I · Comfort Colors 1717 · 6.1 oz 100% ring-spun garment-dyed cotton (Black, Pepper, Navy)


1903 Wright Flyer I · The hard part was not the engine. It was keeping a machine steady in air that moved. Between 1900 and 1902 on the Kill Devil Hills dunes, Wilbur and Orville worked out wing-warping, a forward elevator, and a movable rear rudder so the craft could be steered in three axes instead of hoping the wind would be kind. The National Park Service still teaches that lesson from those hills. The chest is the control idea, not a portrait. Long sleeve tee, forty-eight dollars.


1903 Wright Flyer I · Charlie Taylor built the first airplane engine in the Wright bicycle shop in Dayton. In about six weeks he finished an aluminum-block four-cylinder that weighed roughly 180 pounds and made about twelve horsepower, enough for the 1903 machine on the Outer Banks. He was not a famous pilot and he was not on the dunes for the December flights; the shop work still belongs in the story. The chest is the engine. Heavyweight tee, forty-two dollars.


1911 Curtiss Model D Pusher · The first arrested landing was not a Navy exercise. On 18 January 1911, a civilian named Eugene Ely flew a Curtiss pusher onto a wooden platform over the stern of USS Pennsylvania at anchor in San Francisco Bay. Hooks on the gear caught ropes weighted with sandbags; he was aboard at 11:01 and back in the air before noon. Ely was not a naval aviator, and this collection is not a recruiting shirt. The chest is the date of the first trap. Hoodie, sixty-eight dollars.

Oscar F. Perdomo became an ace in a single day over the Philippines in 1945, flying a P-47 for the 464th Fighter Squadron. Five victories in one mission is the record the Air Force still cites when it tells that story; his name stays on the shirt because the day was his. The chest is the count and the date the archive keeps. Heavyweight tee, forty-two dollars.

Arthur Van Haren Jr. flew Hellcats from carriers in the Pacific and finished the war as one of the Navy’s higher-scoring aces from that fight. The shirt is not a squadron crest. It is the airplane and the hours that made the record worth keeping in the archive. Heavyweight tee, forty-two dollars.


1903 Wright Flyer I · Departure 1903 is a photography archive of early American flight that happens to sell garments. The house mark is the word DEPARTURE stacked over 1903, set for people who care where the first flights actually left the ground. No airplane outline on this one. Heavyweight tee, forty-two dollars.


1903 Wright Flyer I · Same house mark as the wordmark tee: DEPARTURE over 1903, without turning a memorial into a logo. Unstructured crown, low profile, the kind of cap you wear when the story is already doing the work. Unstructured cap, thirty-two dollars.


Ryan NYP (Spirit of St. Louis) · The first solo nonstop Atlantic crossing took thirty-three hours and thirty minutes. Charles Lindbergh left Roosevelt Field on Long Island on the morning of 20 May 1927 and landed at Le Bourget, near Paris, the next evening. The National Air and Space Museum keeps the Ryan NYP and records the distance as 3,610 miles. His name is here because that is how you tell the story. The chest only carries the duration and the date. Heavyweight tee, forty-two dollars.


Lockheed Vega 5B · Five years to the day after the New York-Paris solo, Amelia Earhart left Harbour Grace, Newfoundland, in a Lockheed Vega and put it down about fifteen hours later in a farmer's field at Culmore, near Londonderry. The National Air and Space Museum calls that the first solo Atlantic crossing by a woman, and the second by anyone. The museum is careful with the hour, so this garment is too: about fifteen hours, not a tighter number we do not have. Her name is in the sentences. The chest is the duration and the date. Long sleeve, forty-eight dollars.


Canadair Sabre Mk 3 (F-86) · On 18 May 1953 Jacqueline Cochran became the first woman to fly faster than sound. The National Air and Space Museum says she did it in a borrowed Canadair F-86, because the military jets other people were using were not available to a civilian woman. At her death in 1980 the museum records that she held more speed, altitude, and distance records than any other pilot. Chuck Yeager coached her; this is not his hoodie. Her name stays in the story. The chest is MACH 1 and the date. Hoodie, sixty-eight dollars.


Mercury-Redstone 3 (Freedom 7) · Comfort Colors 1717 · 6.1 oz garment-dyed heavyweight cotton (White, Ivory, Khaki)

The first flights, recorded on cotton and paper.
First Flight Kit: $66, save $8 vs $74 separately. 12 Seconds Tee ($42) plus Kill Devil Hills Cap ($32).

Two Atlantic flights, five years apart to the day.

Heavy cotton and workwear for the cold months.
A correction / From the journal
The Wrights flew from the sand at Kill Devil Hills, about four miles south, and we think the place deserves its name back.
Read the essayFree shipping over $75.
Order by Dec 10 for Dec 17.
Order by Dec 16 for Dec 24.