The dedication of Wright Field in 1927 presented a 5,000-acre site to the government on behalf of the citizens of Dayton. Some 600 citizens and business donated to the fund.
Orville Wright was present for the ceremony and contributed an article he wrote for the publication, “Aviation Progress,” that described the early trials of inventing the airplane. “Aviation Progress” dated October 8, 1927, was a special edition covering the dedication. It was published by the National Cash Register Co. (NCR).
Here is Orville’s story:
Our interest in aeronautics dates back as far as 1899, at which time my brother, Wilbur, and I started work on the development of a heavier-than-air machine which would be sufficiently mobile to permit practical flying.
Some of our experiments were carried out in Dayton and others in Kitty Hawk, NC.
The first actual heavier-than-air machine was a glider, flown in the year 1900, at Kitty Hawk. The span of this plane was 18-feet with a chord of 5-feet.
Most of the experiments with this glider were made as a kite, operating the levers by chords from the ground.
In 1903, we developed a power machine having a span of 41-feet and a chord of 6 1/2-feet. Inasmuch as we had previously been unable to secure a satisfactory motor for this plane, we developed and made one which met the requirements and which developed from 10 to 12 horsepower. The motor was a horizontal type.
The weight of the machine with operator was 750 pounds. This machine made the first flight in the history of the world at Kitty Hawk on December 17, 1903.
The flights of 1902 glider had demonstrated the efficiency of our system of maintaining equilibrium, and also the accuracy of the laboratory work upon which the design of the glider was based.
We then felt we were prepared to calculate in advance the performance with a degree of accuracy that had never been possible with data and tables possessed by our predecessors. Before leaving camp in 1902, we were already at work on the general design of a new machine which we proposed to propel with a motor.
When the motor was completed and tested, we found that it would develop 16- horsepower for a few seconds, but that the power rapidly dropped till, at the end of a minute, it was 12-horsepower. Ignorant of what a motor of this size ought to develop, we were greatly pleased with the performance.
More experience showed us that we did get one-half of the power we should have had.
We left Dayton, September 23rd, and arrived at our camp at Kill Devil Hill on Friday, the 25th.
On November 28, while giving the motor a run indoors, we thought we again saw something wrong with one of the propeller shafts. On stopping the motor we discovered that one of the tubular shafts had cracked. Immediate preparation was made for returning to Dayton to build another set of shafts.
Wilbur remained in camp while I went to get new shafts. I did not get back to camp again till Friday the 11th of December.
Saturday afternoon the machine was again ready for trial, but the wind was so light a start could not be made from level ground with the run of 60-feet permitted by our monorail track. Nor was there enough time before dark to take the machine to one of the hills where, by placing the track on a steep incline, sufficient speed could be secured in calm air.
Monday, December 14, was a beautiful day, but there was not enough wind to enable a start to be made from the level ground around camp. We therefore decided to attempt a flight from the side of Kill Devil Hill.
We arranged with the members of the Kill Devil Hill life-saving station, which was located a little over a mile from our camp, to inform them when we were ready to make the first trial of the machine.
During the night of December 16, 1903, a strong wind blew from the north. When we arose on the morning of the 17th, the puddles of water, which had been standing about the camp since the recent rains, were covered with ice. The wind had a velocity of 10 to 12 meters per second (22 to 27-miles per hour). We thought it would die down before long and so remained indoors the early part of the morning.
But when ten o’clock arrived, and the wind was as brisk as ever, we decided that we had better get the machine out and attempt a flight.
We hung out the signal for the men of the life-saving station. We thought by facing the machine into a strong wind there ought to be no trouble in launching it from the level ground about the camp.
We realized the difficulties of flying in so high a wind, but estimated that the added dangers in flight would be partly compensated for by the slower speed in landing.
After running the motor a few minutes to heat it up, I released the wire that held the machine to the track, and the machine started forward into the wind. Wilbur ran at the side of the machine, holding the wing to balance it on the track. Unlike the start on the 14th, made in calm, the machine facing 27-mile an hour wind started very slowly. Wilbur was able to stay with it until it lifted from the track after a 40-foot run.
One of the life-saving men snapped the camera for us, taking a picture just as the machine reached the end of the track and had risen to a height of about 2-feet.
The course of the flight up and down was exceedingly erratic, partly due to the irregularity of the air, and partly to lack of experience in handling the machine.
The control of the front rudder was difficult on account of its being balanced too near the center. This gave it a tendency to turn itself when started, so that it turned too far on one side and then too far on the other. As a result, the machine would rise suddenly 10-feet and then as suddenly dart for the ground.
A sudden dart a little over 100-feet from the end of the track, or a little over 120-feet from the point at which it rose into the air, ended the flight.
As the velocity of the wind was over 35-feet per second and the speed of the machine over the ground against this wind 10-feet per second, the speed of the machine relative to the air was over 45-feet per second (30.7 mph), and the length of the flight was equivalent of a flight of 450-feet made in calm air.
This flight only lasted 12-seconds had but it was nevertheless the first time in history of the world in which a machine carrying a man raised itself by its own power into the air in full flight, had sailed forward without reduction of speed, and had finally landed as high as that from which it started.
At twenty minutes after eleven Wilbur started on the second flight. The course of this flight was much like that of the first flight, very much up and down. The speed over the ground was somewhat faster than of the first flight, due to the lesser wind. The duration of the flight was less than a second longer than the first, but the distance was about 75-feet greater.
Twenty minutes later the third flight started. This one was steadier than the first one an hour before. I was proceeding along pretty well when a sudden gust from the right lifted the machine up 12 to 15 feet and turned it up sidewise in an alarming manner. It began a lively sliding off to the left. I warped the wing to try to recover lateral balance, and at the same time pointed the machine down to reach the ground as quickly as possible.
The lateral control was more effective than I had imagined, and before I reached the ground the right wing was lower than the left and struck first.
The time of the flight was 15-seconds and the distance over the ground was a little over 200-feet.
Wilbur started the fourth and last flight at just twelve o’clock. The first few hundred feet were up and down as before, but by the time 300-feet had been covered, the machine was under much better control. The course for the next four or five hundred feet had but little undulation. However, when at about 800-feet the machine began pitching again, and on one of its starts downward struck the ground.
The distance over the ground was measured and found to be 852-feet. The time of the flight was 59-seconds.
The frame supporting the front rudder was badly broken, but the main part of the machine was not injured at all.