[Photos & text are from a Wired.com article: December 17, 2003]
On a rainy day when the winds on North Carolina's Outer Banks were uncharacteristically calm, a team of engineers tinkered with the plane and waited in vain for the breeze to pick up before they finally gave up trying to match the feat of the two self-educated bicycle mechanics from Dayton, Ohio.
"Well, if this were easy, I guess everyone would do it," said Tom Poberenzy, president of the Experimental Aircraft Association, a group of aviation enthusiasts that had a hand in building the painstakingly accurate reproduction.
In what was supposed to have been the climax of a six-day celebration of the historic Dec. 17, 1903, flight, the rickety Wright Flyer roared its engine and began the slow crawl down the 200-foot wooden launching track, rising just 6 inches for about a second before hitting the sand.
The plane, created at a cost of $1.2 million, twisted awkwardly before stopping with its right wing pushed into the sand, leaving a snapped crosswire and broken fitting.
The reproduction -- 605 pounds, with authentic spruce ribs and a wingspan of 40 feet -- matched the brothers' work down to the thread count of the muslin covering its wings, and the frustration it produced was also historically accurate.
 |
| Pilot Kevin Kochersberger, left, and the Wright Experience crew roll the 1903 Wright Flyer reproduction back to the hangar area after Wednesday's failed takeoff attempt. |
Orville and Wilbur Wright crashed their flyer at least once before pulling off their successful flight at Kill Devil Hills, not far from Kitty Hawk. The contraption they built in their bicycle workshop back in Ohio took flight four times that day: The first flight lasted 12 seconds, while the final one was 59 seconds long and covered 852 feet.
The re-enactors had planned for years to launch the airplane at 10:35 a.m., 100 years to the minute from when the Wrights first ascended into the skies under motor power. That plan was scrapped not only because of the drenching, scattered rains, but also because winds on the normally breezy Outer Banks dipped below the minimum 10 mph needed.
Next: Aviation Milestones
