Wright celebration features Warrenton man's plane

A little more than 100 years ago to the day, about 6,000 people gathered at Fort Myer in Arlington County to witness the first public airplane flight in America.

Five years earlier, Wilbur and Orville Wright flew the first plane ever at Kitty Hawk, N.C.

But only six people observed that historic event and much of the world still remained skeptical about man’s ability to fly.

That would change on Sept. 3, 1908, when Fort Myer opened its gates for the widely promoted first public flight on the continent.

Flying alone, pilot Orville Wright took the "Fort Myer Flyer" one-and-a-half times around the parade field, reaching about 40 mph.

No one had seen anything like it, or had heard anything like the whomp, whomp, whomp of the biplane’s 28-horsepower engine and the whir of its two, eight-and-a-half-foot spruce propellers.

"It was mind-blowing," said Ken Hyde, a Warrenton-area resident and founder of The Wright Experience, a company that builds reproductions of aviation history’s earliest crafts. "Nobody believed flight was possible. Most people who saw [the Sept. 3 flight] rode horseback there. The Model-T didn’t come out until that October."

To commemorate the flight, Fort Myer will host a free, day-long celebration on Saturday, Sept. 6. Post gates will open at 8:30 a.m.

The celebration will include displays, presentations, demonstrations, bands, reenactments and fly-overs.

Most importantly, it will feature a reproduction of the Fort Myer Flyer, which Hyde’s company constructed.

The Discovery of Flight Foundation of Warrenton sponsored the project and hired Hyde, a plane mechanic and pilot, to build the biplane.

About three years ago, Hyde, 68, and others began to discuss ways to mark the 1908 flight.

Partners in the "Centennial of Military Aviation Celebration" include the Army, Air Force, Coast Guard, Marine Corps, Navy, the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, the College Park Aviation Museum, Arlington County and the Victorian Society of Falls Church.

In the early 1900s, the Army didn’t know what to make of airplanes, although it believed they could be put to some military use.

"They figured it was for observation and scouting," said Hyde, who during the 1960s calibrated tracking stations for the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo missions from a DC-4 for the Goddard Space Flight Center in Maryland. "They used balloons in the Civil War. And there was still [an Army] balloon corps."

At the time, the Army didn’t view planes as a means to fight wars, he said.

So it sought bids for a plane that could accommodate two people sitting upright and travel at least 40 mph for two hours, Hyde said.

Several responded. The contract winner would receive $25,000 if the plane satisfied the Army’s criteria, plus $2,500 per mile above the 40-mph requirement.

The Wright brothers got the job.

The Fort Myer Flyer crashed on its 15th flight, injuring Orville and killing the only passenger, pilot trainee and Army Lt. Thomas Selfridge, aviation’s first fatality.

A defect in the left propeller led to the crash.

The Wright brothers corrected the defect. And for a later version of the Fort Myer Flyer they received $25,000 and a $5,000 bonus for reaching 42 mph.

It took almost a year to complete research on the Fort Myer Flyer reproduction and more than two years to build it, said Hyde, whose company has constructed about 20 planes and gliders.

He said it took 12,000 to 14,000 hours to build the plane.

Hyde figures he put 3,000 hours into the project. His staff, volunteers and student interns did the rest of the work.

Like the original, Hyde’s craft weighs about 850 pounds, including a 28-horsepower engine, and is made of spruce and ash, with its wings sheathed in muslin.

It measures 28 feet from nose to tail, with a 40-foot, six-inch wingspan.

The engine operates but there will be no flight demonstration on Saturday because the plane hasn’t been tested, Hyde said.

He will run the engine during the celebration so that people "can see and smell and hear what it was like 100 years ago. We encourage people to touch [the plane] and understand what [the Wright brothers] did."

After Saturday, the plane will be displayed at the National Air and Space Museum’s Steven F. Udvar-Hazy Center on Route 28 near Dulles Airport for about a year, Hyde said.

It then will undergo testing in a wind tunnel so that adjustments can be made to prepare it for flight. Flight tests will take place in Virginia.

"The goal is to fly it," Hyde said.

After testing, the plane will return to Udvar-Hazy Center for another year, before becoming a permanent part of the planned Army museum at Fort Belvoir, he said.

Hyde declined to discuss development and construction costs for the Fort Myer Flyer. But he said the price tag for the flyer his company built for the Kitty Hawk flight centennial totaled $1.5 million, including $300,000 for testing.

For directions to and information about Saturday’s celebration, visit www.fmmc.army.mil.

To learn more about the reproduction, visit www.wrightexperience.com and www.discoveryofflightfoundation.org .