Kitty Hawk is a town in Dare County, North Carolina, United States. The population was 2,991 at the 2000 census. It was established in the early 1700s as Chickahawk. Kitty Hawk became famous after the Wright brothers selected a nearby site upon which to make their first controlled powered airplane flights on December 17, 1903. The site, four miles (six kilometers) to the south near the sand dunes known as the Kill Devil Hills, was an ideal location because of the consistent, reliable winds and the privacy that the area provided. The aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63), the B-2 Spirit stealth bomber AV-19, the aircraft transport ship USS Kitty Hawk (AKV-1), and the Apollo 14 command module have been named for the town.