Dayton Celebration Events

Design of Wright Flyers II, III

A momentous event in the history of the airplane occurred 100 years ago on October 5, 1905. It was the first flight of the first practical airplane piloted by Orville Wright over Huffman Prairie, a cow pasture in Dayton, Ohio

On that occasion Wilbur flew thirty circles over the field, landing only when fuel was exhausted. He had flown the 30 circles in more than 39 minutes, exceeding the sum of all 109 flights made in 1903 and 1904. His average speed was 38-mph over the 24 miles he flew. It was the 48th flight and second to last flight of 1905.

He demonstrated that the Flyer was capable of taking off, flying for an extended period of time under the control of the pilot, and landing safely.

It was the culmination of seven years of research, disappointment, brilliant engineering, risk of serious injury, disparagement and ultimate success.

The Wrights first great success was at Kitty Hawk in 1903 with the Flyer I. The craft, however, was not maneuverable or controllable. The following year they began work on a practical airplane at Huffman Prairie, a 100-acre pasture eight miles east of Dayton.

1904 Flyer II

April 15, 1904 the Wrights completed constructing a wooden shed at Huffman Prairie to house their new 1904 Flying machine (Flyer II). They located the building as far away as they could from Simms Station on the traction line from Dayton for their privacy. It was on the south side of the prairie adjacent to Hebble Creek. The creek was named after my great-great Grandfather Henry Hebble who had built a home nearby.

The machine looked very much in appearance like the 1903 Flyer. They reduced the wing camber from 1/20 to 1/25 and substituted white pine for spruce for the wing spars. Both of these changes were reversed back to the original configuration in the 1905 Flyer.

The biggest improvement they made was that they designed a new engine for Flyer II. It had slightly larger pistons and produced about 16-hp. The engine had improved lubrication and a fuel metering system. The same engine was used in the 1905 Flyer and by that time the engine was worn-in and producing 20-hp.

The 1903 propellers were reused initially but were damaged in a crash on August 10th and were replaced with propellers having great blade width.

For the 1904 Flyer as with the 1903 Flyer, the pilot lay in the prone position and the wing warping and rudder controls were interconnected.

Later they added some 70-pounds of iron bars to the forward frame that supports the canard to move the center of gravity (c.g.) forward to improve stability. It helped slow down pitch oscillations and decreased elevator sensitivity. It was still not a complete solution. The gross weight of the craft was 900 lbs.

Their first flight was attempted on May 23rd using a new 100-ft long launching rail. Several flights were attempted but rain and insufficient wind prevented takeoff. Nor was there much success over the next five months. Flying consisted of short hops of 100 to 200 feet ending with crashes and broken parts. Their record fourth flight of 852-ft at Kitty Hawk in 1903 was not exceeded until August 13.

Their next attempt was on May 26. Orville flew about 25-ft.

Their biggest problem was insufficient and unpredictable wind and less dense air at the 815-ft elevation in Dayton as compared to sea level at Kitty Hawk. It was frustrating. They would lay the track in one direction and then the wind would change direction and they would have to relay the track in another direction.

It is estimated that the less dense air caused a 13% reduction in lift. The first 39 flight attempts were made on a launching rail as long as 236-ft. In contrast the rail at Kitty Hawk was 60-ft long.

Wilbur wrote, “We found great difficulty in getting sufficient initial velocity to get real starts. While the new machine lifts at a speed of about 23-mph, it is only after the speed reaches 27 or 28-mph that the resistance falls below the thrust.”

They decided they needed a catapult launch system to consistently get off the ground. It consisted of a 20-ft tower and a weight that when dropped propelled the Flyer. The weight was incrementally increased over time to 1600-lbs. It was placed in operation on September 7. The ability to take-off improved markedly after that. For the first time they could fly the length of the field without difficulty and complete full turns.

On September 20th Wilbur successfully flew the first complete turn. The flight was witnessed by Amos I. Root, who described it in the January 1, 1905 issue of Gleaning in Bee Culture. Root was the editor and publisher of the magazine.

Root offered to give his article to Scientific American. They refused the offer because they didn’t believe his story.

Their last flight in 1904 was on December 9. While they had had some success, they were still frequently flying out of control. They had trouble with pitch stability and their circles were ungainly and awkward. On tight turns the machine had a tendency to keep on turning. They tried moving the c.g. by moving the pilot position, engine, water tank and ballast but they were still looking for a solution as the season ended.

Between May 26 and December 9, 1904 they made 105 flight attempts with an accumulated total flying time of 49 minutes.

1905 Flyer III

The 1905 Flyer was radically different in design than the 1903 machine. Initially the motor, propellers and drive system were reused from the 1904 machine. The engine’s lubrication system and fuel pumps were improved. The horsepower increased to almost twice the engine of the 1903 Flyer.

The camber was reset at 1/20 again. The anhedral (droop) of the wings used in the 1903/1904 Flyers was removed. The overall machine was longer and a little taller.

A pair of semicircular vanes, called blinkers, was placed between the twin elevator surfaces to prevent sideslips. The propellers had tabs, called little jokers, on the trailing edge to halt deformation. The shape was known as the “bent end” propeller.

The canard elevator was moved forward and its surface area nearly doubled. The vertical rudder was moved to the rear and greatly enlarged.

The interconnection between the wing warping and rudder controls used in 1903/1904 Flyers was separated so that the pilot could control them separately.

The first flight of the new machine was made on June 23. They found that they still were having trouble with pitch and circling. Only eight flights were made during the first several weeks. Each ended in an accident and damage.

On July 14, Orville lost control of the Flyer due to extreme pitch undulations and crashed. He was fortunate to escape injury but the machine suffered significant damage. During the rebuilding major design changes were made.

They enlarged the elevator surface area from 52.74 square feet to 83 square feet and moved the elevator from 7.32 to 11.7 ft in front of the leading edge of the wing. The length of the machine ended up 7 feet longer than the 1903 Flyer

After the modification on August 24, they found a significant improvement in the performance of the machine. Now both Orville and Wilbur could get the flying time to learn how to fly their machine.

On flight No. 39 for 1905, Orville brushed a thorny locust tree with a wingtip leaving some thorns in the fabric. The tree was located in the center of the Huffman Prairie. Orville misjudged his distance and the wingtip brushed the upper branches. The hit forced the Flyer into a tight circle. Orville, reacting to the turn, pushed the nose down. To his surprise, the machine reacted by stopping the turns and leveling out.

The Wrights figured out what the problem was with the tight turns. When entering a turn, the lift much be increased to compensate for centrifugal force that adds to the weight carried by the wings. In turning flight the lift instead of increasing, decreases because in turning, the lift on inside wing decreases as it slows down. The effect is that the inside wing can stall and cause the machine to spin into the turn. The solution is to increase speed by placing the Flyer into a shallow dive and therefore prevent the inside wing from stalling.

In order to stay within the confines of the field their flight paths consisted of oval turns. They didn’t want to stray outside the barbwire fence because of the difficulty of dragging the machine back.

The Wrights, by accident, now knew how to solve the tight circle problem they had experienced in 1904. The solution to recover from a tight circle was to put the Flyer into a shallow dive to increase airspeed to prevent the inside wing from stalling.

Two other changes also led to a complete solution. One was the elimination of the anhedral wing, which had been used since 1903. The other was to decouple wing warping from the rudder to allow independent roll and yaw control by the pilot.

After his No. 48 flight on October 5, Wilbur pronounced the Wright Flyer III capable of rising in the air for an extended period under complete control of the operator, and landing safely. It was the world’s first practical airplane.

One more flight was made on October 16. It was the last flight for 1905. One round of the field was made ending with a landing near their hanger.

Wilbur wrote in December 1905, “Our 1905 improvements have given such results as to justify the assertion that flying has been transferred from the realm of scientific problems to that of useful arts.”

The Wright Cycle Company building at 22 S. Williams St. in West Dayton was recently renovated. Wilbur and Orville operated a bicycle and printing business at this location from 1895 to 1897. It is in this building that the Wrights began to discuss the building of an airplane.

Steve Wright, the great-grandnephew of Wilbur and Orville, gave the rededication speech. The following is an adapted version of the speech printed in the Dayton Daily News in August 2004.

Infatuation is what led my uncles into the business of selling bicycles when the bicycle was all the rage. The bicycle was and is affordable freedom.

The design philosophy of the new safety bikes of those early days transferred beautifully to the study of aeronautics and the design of a flying machine. That transfer of design and technology from one machine to another fascinates me, and I’m so pleased to see that subject addressed in the restored bicycle shop we dedicate today.

Without a doubt, the bicycle is one of man’s most beautiful inventions — simple, efficient and practical. I view this machine as rolling, minimalist art.

The shape of the early safety bike remains virtually unchanged from the time Uncle Wil and Uncle Orv and Aunt Katharine pedaled through the local countryside around Dayton. That alone is testament to the near-perfect design of this machine, especially when you consider the pace at which inventions become obsolete in today’s world.

Wilbur and Orville Wright made only modest improvements to their custom-built bikes. The masters of aerodynamics left the shape alone.

That is not to say improvements have not been made to the machine and its rider over the last century. Guess where most of those improvements transferred from?

They came from the very same industry that initially employed bicycle innovations to get that first airplane off the ground. That industry began in this bicycle shop. The bicycle begat the airplane and its myriad technologies and science disciplines. Those technologies and disciplines, in turn, improved the bicycle and the physiology of those who ride it.

Today’s bicycle uses aerospace innovations such as variable geometry aluminum tubing, Kevlar, titanium, carbon fiber, fiber, studies in ergonomics, physiology and aerodynamics, and computer-aided design to bring it all together.

I’m just glad that the clothing we ride in today does not usually include bowler hats, starched collars, three-piece wool suits and wingtips.

I’ve been watching a television documentary that follows Lance Armstrong preparing to attempt a sixth straight Tour De France win. If he pulls it off, he will be in a class all by himself in the realm of human athletic achievement. Needless to say, he and his team’s training regimen is single-minded and grueling.

But what really caught my attention was a segment that showed Armstrong on his bike in a wind tunnel covered with sensors from head to toe while riding in place into a stream of smoke. He was being monitored by a team of people who probably represented a dozen scientific disciplines.

Most of those disciplines were born or at least driven to greater achievement by a decision made by Uncle Wil and Uncle Orv to pursue a lifelong interest in flight in this building a little more than a century ago.

I think Uncle Wil and Uncle Orv would be amused and proud to see Armstrong perched on his bike in that wind tunnel; a device that they had used so brilliantly in the back of their bike shop so long ago to build a different kind of machine. OF course, they would love to take a spin on Armstrong’s bike, assuming they didn’t disassemble it first.

But I don’t think they’d be willing to trade their bowler hats, starched collars, three-piece wool suits and wingtips for his skin-tight Spandex. At least let’s hope not.

If you look in Dayton for the historic Wright bicycle shop where they began their aeronautical experiments and built the first airplane, you will find a vacant lot. You will have to journey to Greenfield Village in Dearborn, Michigan to find the cycle shop. The building, along with the Wrights’ home on Hawthorn St. was purchased by Henry Ford in 1936 and moved there.

In preparation for Dayton’s centennial celebration, the question arose as to whether any Wright artifacts remained in the soil. To answer this question, a team headed by Wright State University’s Field School in Archaeology, conducted an excavation of the site from June 27th to August 6th in 2003.

This is the story of how it came about that the cycle shop was moved to Michigan and about the search for any Wright artifacts left behind in the soil.

Henry Ford started the process in 1925. He was interested in obtaining the 1903 Flyer for display in his Greenfield Village, Michigan but nothing came of it at the time.

It is somewhat odd that Ford and Orville were now friends and that now Ford wanted the Flyer because earlier Ford had criticized the Wrights for using their patent to hold back progress in aviation.

The idea didn’t die. An organization called the Early Birds got involved. This group was composed of pioneer pilots that had flown prior to 1916. They believed that Ford’s Greenfield Village had the resources to properly preserve the Flyer.

William E. Scripps, publisher of the Detroit News, was president of the group. He sent James V. Piersol, one of his reporters, to Dayton to talk to Orville on the behalf of Henry Ford and his son, Edsel. The meeting occurred in December 1935.

Orville explained to his visitors that he would make no decision on the Flyer, which was in London at the London Science museum, until his feud with the Smithsonian was resolved.

Since the fate of the Flyer could not be resolved, Piersol mentioned that Ford was interested in preserving the bicycle shop at 1127 West Third St. where the Flyer had been built. Ford was interested in some of the artifacts in the shop such as the lift and drag measuring balances used in the wind tunnel tests as well.

Orville was interested in this proposal. Following the meeting, Edsel Ford worked with Orville to complete the deal. Piersol paid the Charles Webbert family, $13,000 on July 2, 1936 to complete the transfer of ownership. He then donated the building to Ford for the park.

During the discussions about the shop, Orville mentioned to Piersol the possibility of also acquiring the residence on Hawthorn St. where Orville and Katharine been born and Wilbur had died. Orville was concerned that both buildings wouldn’t be preserved. Henry Ford was interested. Henry and Edsel visited Dayton to see both buildings in October 1936.

Lottie Jones, the Wrights’ laundress when they lived on Hawthorn St. and at the new mansion at Hawthorn Hill, owned the house. She had acquired it when Milton Wright left it to Katharine when he died. Katharine sold it to Lottie for $4,000, including most of the furniture. Lottie sold it to Ford for $4,100.

The two buildings were moved to Dearborn in boxcars and reconstructed piece by piece in their original configuration. Every piece had been marked in Dayton to permit identification. Ford’s specification even required that five dump trucks of soil (some 20 tons) be taken from beneath the house so that it would continue to stand on Dayton soil. Charlie Taylor, the Wrights mechanic, was hired to help with the reconstruction in order to assure accuracy. He also helped Orville and Mabel Beck, his secretary, locate surviving machine tools that were used in the shop.

The dedication of the two relocated buildings took place on the anniversary of Wilbur’s birthday, April 16, 1938. Orville was the guest of honor. A. D. Etheridge and John T. Daniels from the Kill Devil Lifesavings station and William J. Tate from Kitty Hawk were in attendance.

Not everyone in Dayton was happy with what happened. But in the long run it was the best decision. The neighborhood around the buildings in Dayton was deteriorating. Buildings were neglected and forgotten. Businesses were closing. Money was scarce because it was in the middle of the depression. The house next to the Wright home burned down and most likely would have burned down the Wright’s house with it since there was only four feet between them.

Also, more people can see the buildings. Last year, 1.4 million people visited Greenfield Village. The park was opened in 1929. Ford’s idea was to illustrate forever the role of a handful of innovators in improving American life. That idea has now been expanded to celebrate things that demonstrate innovation, resourcefulness and ingenuity.

The park includes a 40,000 square-feet “Heroes of the Sky” exhibit containing a collection of famous airplanes in the context of history making aviators. The most recent addition to the exhibit is the reproduction Wright Flyer that attempted to fly at Kill Devil Hills on December 17, 2003 built by the Wright Experience. It did fly on two practice flights at Kill Devil Hills prior to the 17th.

In the 1950s, Andy’s Used Furniture store was built on the site of the cycle shop, which was than a parking lot. In August 2002 it was demolished in anticipation of building a false facade of the cycle shop at the site. Unexpectedly the demolition crew ran into some limestone blocks from an earlier foundation that were thought to be two segments of the foundation of the cycle shop. Tony Sculimbrene, Executive Director of the Dayton Aviation Heritage Commission, immediately realized that there might be more original historically significant artifacts below ground.

Tony related the information to Robert Riordan, Department of Sociology and Anthropology of Wright State University. This set the ball rolling for the Heritage Commission’s awarding a contract to Wright State’s Field School in Archaeology to conduct an archaeological excavation during the Inventing Flight Celebration in July 2003. The timing would be great because thousands of tourists would be in the area to visit the historic sites and the National Historic Park.

The first building on the site was a one story home built by Jacob Zearing in 1861. Charles Webbert, who owned a plumbing and hardware store, subsequently purchased the building. He converted the home into a business with two adjoining storefronts.

In 1897 the Wrights leased one of the storefronts from Webbert and moved the “Wright Cycle Company” for the last time into the storefront on the West Side.

Several additions were made to the building over the years for needed space. Eventually the building consisted of a single building with three separate storefronts two stories tall.

One of the businesses that shared the building was an undertaker, Fetters and Shank. They occupied the storefront on the East Side from 1905-1910.

The Wrights continued to build, repair and sell bicycles until 1904. Thereafter they employed others to sell and repair other brands until 1908.

They continued their printing business upstairs and by this time had co-mingled the financial assets of the bicycle and printing businesses. They sold the printing business in 1899 after Ed Sines, Orville’s friend from boyhood, was no longer able to work because of health problems.

The Wrights (Wilbur died in 1912) continued to use the building until 1916 as a laboratory and office and built the early Wright airplanes there, including the first airplane that they shipped to France in 1907.

When Orville became president of the Wright Company after Wilbur’s death, Orville preferred to work at his office at the cycle shop. He retained Mabel Beck, who had been Wilbur’s secretary for his secretary.

Wilbur left the building in 1916 and moved up the street to his newly built lab and office on South Broadway St.

Fourteen volunteers, full and part-time, including college, high school and others under the direction of Dr. Robert Riordan conducted the excavation of the 65-ft. by 165-ft. site. Dr. Frank L Cowan, a consulting archeologist provided part-time assistance.

They found some 6,100 artifacts including architectural products and debris, household items such as glass bottles, personal items such as buttons and shoes, and industrial byproducts such as valves and brackets. They also found children toys such as marbles and two fragments from porcelain dolls.

Most important, they found a number of bicycle parts and printer’s linotype slugs 70-cm below modern grade. Both types of items have actual links to the Wrights and their associates.

The bicycle parts consisted of 44 spoke nipples that are used to tie the spokes to the wheels, 4 valve caps and a one-centimeter brass button with the wording “Kelly Handlebar Co.” on its face.

The button was not used on the Wright-built bicycles but could have been used on bicycles that they sold but didn’t make themselves.

The linotype slugs consisted of an uppercase “R”, a “W” or “M”, another “M” and one that is undecipherable.

They also found two tools, a 14-cm long adjustable wrench and a 25.5-cm file.

They have many more items to examine so their analysis is continuing.

They also have found that the foundation of the Webbert building remains largely intact and the foundations of the Zearing residence are well preserved where examined. There is, therefore, the likelihood that the rest of the foundation structure is as well preserved and capable of providing for the original architecture dating back to 1861 and for the sequence of additions made to the original building.

Tim Binkley (standing in picture) and Tasha Hairston, graduate students from Wright State University, provided hundreds of people, including me, with a friendly and interesting interpretation of the progressing work.

The excavations only sampled a small area and there remains much yet to be discovered. Ford left more behind than expected. The area is extensively disturbed, yet the foundations remained and the site appears rich with artifacts of the pre-1930s era. The excavation team believes that it is very likely that other intact deposits of Wright associated artifacts remain within the lot.

Reference: The 2003 Wright State University Field School Investigations at the Wright Cycle Shop, 33 MY80, Dayton, Ohio (Draft)

Katharine Wright and her Famous Brothers come to life again in the persona of Betty Geiger-Darst, a dramatist and historian who performs as Katharine in a one-woman show.

Katharine, the younger sister of Orville and Wilbur, managed many of the brothers’ affairs and was their confidant and caregiver. She was intelligent and poised and charmed presidents and Kings providing the social interface for her shy brothers. She gave them the freedom to dream, research and invent the airplane.

Darst is Katharine when she speaks to her audience dressed in a 1909 black pin stripped duster and a stylish hat with plumes that Katharine would have worn. She shares with her audience a personal view of the Wright family highlighted with short vignettes using many letters and diaries written by the Wright family and recollections by their descendents.

She has spoken to kids and adults around the world, giving 25 presentations alone during the Wright celebration in Dayton in July 2003. She has made trips from Oklahoma to Virginia to Nebraska to Massachusetts to Australia to New Zealand to France, to name a few.

In France she made several presentations at the Paris air Show and visited Pau, location of the Wrights First Flight School. There, she spoke at the city hall utilizing her command of the French language.

During December, in honor of the December 17th celebration, she hosted 37 British aviation enthusiasts in Dayton. They visited the Wright brothers’ historical sights including a trip to Hawthorn Hill where Darst portrayed Katharine on a tour of the mansion.

If you would like to experience such a tour you can via a video: “Wright at Home: A Visit to Hawthorn Hill.” Darst’s e-mail: TheDarsts@Donet.com.

In another video, her voice is heard along with Neil Armstrong and John Glenn in another great video, “Kitty Hawk: The Journey of Invention that was shown on PBS.”

Darst says her goal is to educate youngsters and adults about the Wright brothers. She is a teacher and historian and has been telling her story from the perspective of Katharine for 18 years. She says she got started, when after portraying Katharine on Public Library day in 1985, Ivonette Wright happened to be in the audience. Ivonette is a niece of the Wrights. She told Darst after the presentation, “Keep on telling the story. You are doing a good job” So she has.

Darst is a student pilot and flies as a co-pilot for her husband, Jack. Jack has flown 500 youngsters on behalf of the EAA young eagles program. Jack is also active in Dayton heritage activities including Aviation Trail and Nick Engler’s Wright Brothers Aeroplane Company.