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Originally Posted by WRnative
What was the world's first heavier-than-air machine able to engage in controlled, powered, and piloted flight for extended periods and then land safely, and when and where did it first fly? Where is this plane now exhibited for visitors?
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Wright Flyer III, unlike the much more famous Wright Flyer I, is honored as a mechanical engineering landmark by the ASME.
<<Once again, on October 5, 1905, Wilbur flew until his fuel was exhausted, only this time he had enough to remain aloft for 39 minutes, 24 seconds, covering slightly over 24 miles, a distance longer than all of the previous 109 flights put together. Unlike anything else in the world, it could take off, climb into the air, fly for extended periods in any direction completely under the pilot's control and land in a safe, controlled manner. And it had shown that it could do all of this over and over again. While some fundamental changes in airplane design would come in the future, the primary one being the relocation of the elevator to the tail of most planes, the basic concepts proven by the Wrights with Wright Flyer III remained the foundation for these designs.>>
https://www.asme.org/about-asme/who-...ight-flyer-iii
As described in the above article, the Wright Flyer III was the first Wright plane with the essential separate rudder control, a fixture on all subsequent airplanes.
Due to contractual obligations and a tortured relationship between Orville Wright and the Smithsonian, the Smithsonian is contractually obligated to represent that the Wright Flyer I was the world's first airplane. Not until later, did Orville realize that the Wright Flyer III could be salvaged and reconstructed with the financial and engineering manpower of Dayton's National Cash Register Company industrial behemoth.
The Wright Flyer III was first flown and perfected at the 84-acre Huffman Prairie Flying Field in Dayton in 1905. Until the Wrights secured their patents, and demonstrated their invention and piloting skills in France and the U.S. in 1908, the world continued to think of the Wrights as charlatans, even in their hometown of Dayton. But once they demonstrated their invention, they instantly became the fathers of powered, manned flight.
https://www.tripadvisor.com/Travel-g...The.World.html
The Wright Flyer III is housed at the excellent Carillon Historical Park in Dayton, where the Wright building is part of the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park.
It's a perverse turn of history that Huffman Prairie Flying Field, also part of the national historical park, is relatively sparsely visited in comparison to the Wright Brothers National Memorial in Kill Devil Hills, NC (Kitty Hawk), where the Wrights more famously tested in 1903 the Wright Flyer I, essentially a poor powered glider incapable of sustained and controlled powered flight.
The Wright Brothers fame depended not on the Wright Flyer I, but on two years of further innovation and hazardous test flights, undertaken within the boundaries of a small pasture just outside of Dayton in relative secrecy to protect the great commercial value of their invention. These Dayton test flights used a catapult, as they didn't have the advantage of the Kitty Hawk coastal winds, until their designs produced sufficient lift for unassisted take-offs.
Huffman Prairie Flying Field truly is the first place that humans accomplished a mastery of the skies, and yet it is relatively unknown to the world, even among Ohioans.
Consider that there have been several challengers to the claim of first flight, but none but the Wrights produced an actual machine, that even today would be recognized as an airplane, that could be demonstrated to the world in repeated flights. That machine was the Wright Flyer III, not the more famous Wright Flyer I.
Likely thinking of the great technological leap from the Wright Flyer I to the Wright Flyer III, Wilbur Wright wrote before the 2008 demonstration flight in Paris: "There is all the difference in the world between jumping and flying." This was instantly understood by the astonished spectators in Paris on August 7, 2008, when Wilbur first unveiled the Wrights' masterpiece and his piloting skills to the world.
http://nypost.com/2008/08/07/up-in-t...t-brothers-14/
For this reason, the Wright Flyer III arguably was not just the world's first "practical" airplane, but in actuality the world's first airplane -- the Wright Flyer III was a flying machine, not a jumping machine. It's fascinating how historical convention, reinforced by a legal covenant with perhaps the world's foremost historical institution, has created such an artificial distinction.
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