The Wright Stuff

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The highlight of Dayton, Ohio is anything related to the pioneers of aviation, Orville and Wilbur Wright. There’s plenty to find, too. The Air Force Museum on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base has quite a bit honoring the brothers who flew first. And, on the Carillon Historical Park grounds, you’ll find the Wright Brothers National Museum. The museum, unlike the rest of the grounds, is run by the National Park Service. The expansive building that covers the brothers’ innovation is, on the outside, made up to look like their bicycle shop (they owned a bike shop, doing well thanks to the advent of the “safety bike” or what we know as a bicycle today, which quickly replaced the “penny farthing” style large front-wheel model). Inside a tour guide took a group of us around, beginning in a room that looked like a sitting/drawing room from the late 19th century where the Wright family’s history was presented. The Wrights’ first success was not in the bike shop, but in printing. One of Orville’s classmates in school was Paul Laurence Dunbar, who was the first widely-published African-American poet in America, and the brothers’ printing shop helped Dunbar’s newspaper get printed as well as some of his works. (And I asked, because we are talking about the late 19th century, and the guide said that the Dayton area didn’t’ suffer from segregation the way other parts of the country did, so it wasn’t unusual for the black Dunbar and the white Wright to be in school together, or even live relatively close together!) The brothers, it should be noted, never graduated from anything. Despite that, they made detailed notes about the reaction of various shapes in a self-constructed wind tunnel, did the math, and all of the other calculations and measurements necessary to put their flying machine in the air. A replica of their repair shop, with the experiment equipment they used, is in the museum. The highlight of the displays (aside from the animatronics…those are cool!) is the Wright Flyer III. The real thing. The guide said it’s 80% authentic and original. The two pieces that are NOT were replaced because the original pieces were sent to the Smithsonian for the original Wright Flyer (the one that got off the ground in Kill Devils Hill, North Carolina [I’ve been there, it wasn’t “Kitty Hawk” where the flight took place, it’s just that Kitty Hawk was a larger dot on the map than Kill Devils Hill was ]). You stand there, looking in awe at what these two bicycle mechanics and part-time inventors did, and wonder (a) how the heck did it get off the ground?!! and (b) at the amazing progress that went from that little airplane: in just over 60 years after Orville flew for about 12 seconds down in North Carolina, two other Ohio natives — John Glenn and Neil Armstrong — would orbit the earth (Glenn) and walk on the moon (Armstrong). The museum also details the trouble the Wright brothers had in getting a patent for their flying machine (finally accomplishing that shortly before Wilbur died from typhoid in 1912), their success in Europe, and their eventual recognition for being the pioneers they were. The historical park has plenty of history on display, but the Wright Brothers Museum is the Wright stuff! Photos: (L) exterior of the Wright Brothers National Museum (R) Wright Flyer III, 80% original equipment, with a mannequin of Orville at the controls