A visit to the very first practical crash site The July 14th 1905 crash of the III at Hoffman Prairie Flying Field

Orville flying at a height of 60 feet; , Dayton, , Sept 29, 1905

Dave Trojan, [email protected] Feb 2018

The Wright Flyer (often retrospectively referred to as Flyer I or 1903 Flyer) was the first successful heavier-than-air powered aircraft to achieve controlled, sustained flight with a pilot aboard. The flew it four times on December 17, 1903, near Kill Devil Hills, about four miles south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. At Kitty Hawk, the 1903 Flyer was capable of little more than straight line flight. Their third , the 1905 Flyer III was the first airplane capable of banking, performing figure eights, and making repeated landings and take-offs. It is considered the world’s first practical airplane. Huffman Prairie is the place where they tested the 1905 Flyer III and is where they had their practical aircraft accident.

When the Wright brothers returned to Dayton Ohio after their historic first flights at Kitty Hawk, they looked for a suitable flying field closer to home. Dayton banker, Torrence Huffman allowed the brothers to use his pasture, which was located eight miles northeast of Dayton, rent-free. At the Huffman pasture in 1904 and 1905, through a series of unique experiments, the Wright Brothers mastered the principles of controlled powered flight. Huffman Prairie is considered the world’s first airport. The site is about 84 acres of pasture where Wilbur and Orville Wright taught themselves to fly. To take off in Dayton’s light winds, the Wright Brothers built a catapult at Huffman Prairie in September 1904 for use as a starting device independent of the wind. Using the catapult they could launch their flyer with 60 feet of track rail. The first year at Huffman Prairie was filled with frustrations, short flights, and crashes. They approached their first flights cautiously, flying low to the ground to keep the risk of injury at a minimum if they did crash. And crash they did, often, but neither suffered any major injury. Fickle winds and the vexing puzzle of how to control the flying machine as it moved through the air limited their total time aloft. With their 1904 Wright Flyer II, the brothers made 105 flights, totaling 49 minutes in the air, and they made the first turn and the first circle in the air. Only 40 good flights were made at Huffman Prairie before early September 1904. Most flight tests lasted only seconds. At Kitty Hawk they had unlimited space and wind, but at Huffman Prairie they depended upon their launching track and favorable light winds. They were usually up against rain storms, a dead calm or winds that blew at right angles to their launching track. In the entire 1904 flying season, Orville went up 41 times and Wilbur 37 times.

Wilbur & Orville Wright with Flyer II on the Huffman Prairie May 1904

Map of Huffman Prairie drawn by Orville Wright

Crash at Huffman Prairie August 14, 1904, maybe the first crash photo ever?

When the brothers returned to the Huffman Prairie for the 1905 flying season, they brought along an improved machine, the 1905 Wright Flyer III. Orville first flew the Flyer III airplane on 23 Jun 1905. The Flyer III had a new airframe and an upgraded engine with slightly larger cylinders, but it was essentially the same design and had the same marginal performance and instability as Flyers I and II. The Flyer III evolved throughout 1905 however, the Wright Flyer III was not without its own problems.

Start of the first flight of Flyer III, June 23, 1905, Orville at the controls. The catapult tower which they began using in September 1904 is at right. It helped accelerate the aircraft to takeoff speed. The Flyer looks virtually identical to the previous two powered versions, but noticeably different from its later appearance, after the Wrights extended and enlarged the and rudder. The two men are probably Wilbur (running behind the airplane) and Charles Edward Taylor (at right), the Wrights' mechanic who built their first aircraft engine.

Accidents during the 1905 flying season were common, but most were minor. In one flight while circling around a honey locust tree at a height at about 50 feet, the machine suddenly began to turn up on one , and took a course toward a tree. Not relishing the idea of landing in a thorn tree, Orville attempted to reach the ground. However, the left wing struck the tree and carried away several branches before landing. It was one of many close calls that Orville survived.

The most serious crash happened on 14 July 1905, while flying the Wright Flyer III, Orville smashed into the ground at more than 30 miles per hour (48 kilometers per hour), crumpling the front elevator. The Flyer III bounced three times, throwing Orville out through the top wing. Wilbur found him dazed and confused, lying on what was left of the elevator. Orville was still in one piece, but this potentially fatal crash forced the brothers to take a long, hard look at their aircraft design. Unfortunately no pictures of this crash are known to exist.

The crash convinced the Wrights to make radical changes to the aircraft design. When rebuilding the airplane, the Wrights made important design changes that solved the stability problems of the earlier models. They almost doubled the size of the elevator and rudder and moved them about twice the distance from the . They added two fixed half-moon shaped vertical vanes (called "blinkers") between the elevators (but later removed) and widened the skid-undercarriage which helped give the wings a very slight dihedral. They disconnected the rudder of the rebuilt Flyer III from the wing- warping control, and as in most future aircraft, placed it on a separate control handle. They also installed a larger fuel tank and mounted two radiators on front and back struts for extra coolant to the engine for the anticipated lengthy duration flights. When testing of Flyer III resumed in September 1905, improvement was obvious. The pitch instability that had hampered Flyers I and II was brought under control. Crashes, some of which had been severe, no longer occurred. Flights with the redesigned aircraft started lasting over 20 minutes. The Flyer III became practical and dependable, flying reliably for significant durations and bringing its pilot back to the starting point safely and landing without damage.

1905 Wright Flyer III after it was rebuilt following the crash on 14 July 1905, the elevator and rudder control surfaces were moved further out from the wings.

With lessons learned from the 14 July 1905 accident they began again to test fly their improved airplane. On 5 Oct 1905, Wilbur flew 24 miles (38 kilometers) in 39.5 minutes, nearly longer than the total duration of all the flights of 1903 and 1904 combined. It could fly as long as its gas would last. Total time in the air during 1905 was 262 minutes from 50 flights. By the end of the 1905 flying season Orville and Wilbur were both skilled aviators who had mastered the principles of controlled powered flight and the Wright Flyer III was a graceful, fully functional practical airplane.

Front view of Orville Wright piloting the Wright 1905 Flyer at Huffman Prairie on its 41st flight. Orville completed 14 rounds of the field, or about 12 miles in 20 minutes and 49 seconds, not ending until the Flyer's fuel was exhausted. Torrance Huffman, owner of Huffman Prairie, witnessed the flight.

The Wright brothers had many accidents. Orville had the most with eight crashes. His first was with a glider at Kitty Hawk on Sept. 23, 1902. His second crash was with the 1904 Flyer at Huffman Prairie on August 24, 1904. His third crash was also at Huffman Prairie on Nov. 1, 1904. His fourth was his major crash at Huffman Prairie flying the 1905 Flyer on July 14, 1905. His fifth accident almost filled him; it did kill his passenger, Lt. Tom Selfridge. It occurred during the Army trials at Fort Myer on July 2, 1908. His sixth accident was also at Fort Myer a year later on July 2, 1909. His seventh accident was years later in the fall of 1911. He was back at Kitty Hawk with a new larger glider. He flew it into the side of a sand hill. Just six days later he crashed again at Kitty Hawk with his new glider when it flipped over on its back just after release. That was his eighth accident.

The crash that killed Lt. Tom Selfridge at Fort Myer on July 2, 1908

After successfully flying the Wright Flyer III in the summer of 1905, the Wright brothers disassembled the plane in November 1905, fearing that competitors would steal their design. In 1908, they reassembled it with new controls, only to have it crash in a field in during a solo test flight by Wilbur Wright. The Wright Flyer III never flew again. In 1947 The Flyer III was repaired and assembled again by Louis P. Christman. It is now housed in a museum at and deemed a National Historic Landmark (the only airplane named such). A few components of the Flyer III are known to exist in private hands including this piece from Christman's personal collection.

Steel piece artifact from the 1905 Wright Flyer III, measures 2'' Modern Pilots have had trouble flying replicas/reproductions of Wright brothers’ . There have been many such recent accidents subject to FAA crash investigations. Ken Hyde of the Wright Experience in Warrenton, Va. flew his 1911 reproduction Model B into a tree on May 2003 and sustained some injuries, but none life threatening. Later that year in November 2003, another Wright Experience pilot crashed a 1903 Flyer. In 2007, during the 102nd anniversary of the first successful flight of a practical airplane, a replica 1905 Flyer crashed at Huffman Prairie while making its first turn. Pilot Mark Dusenberry was injured in 2009 while making an attempt at flying a replica. Even up to the present day, Wright Flyers have proven both dangerous and deadly. As recently as 2011, the crash of a Wright Flyer replica tragically killed two pilots, Don Gum and Mitchell Carey. This incident is a continuation of Wright Flyer accidents that began with the Wright Brothers more than a hundred years ago. Trying to fly a replica of a Wright Flyer has proven hazardous--and sometimes fatal, even with modern modifications. Modern pilots shouldn’t be surprised that it can be so hard to fly, because the pioneers had so many accidents. The Wright Brothers were the first, but certainly not the last to have aircraft accidents.

Air Force crash rescue and safety personnel inspect the wreckage of a replica 1905 Wright Flyer III that crashed Oct. 1, 2009 on Huffman Prairie Flying Field at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, Ohio. Pilot and vintage aircraft builder Mark Dusenberry of Dennison, Ohio, was injured during the practice flight in preparation to celebrate the 104th Anniversary of Practical Flight. (USAF photo)

Today, Huffman Prairie Flying Field is located on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. It was designated a National Historic Landmark in 1990. I made a visit to the field in February 2018. As I walked alone around the abandoned field, I pondered what it must have been like more than a hundred years ago. By comparing photos of the site from 1905 to the present day, it appears that little has changed. I wondered what lays buried in the field. Maybe parts of the 1905 Flyer are waiting to be discovered? I later asked the Wright Monument Park Ranger if anybody has ever searched the pasture with a metal detector. The answer was no, and no one is allowed to do so because it is considered National Park Land. I guess those artifacts will remain hidden forever. And so it goes, another Aviation Archaeology expedition completed. At least I can say I was there where at all began for Aviation Archaeology. My photos of the Huffman Prairie Flying Field

The wooden shed is a replica built in 1990 on the site of the original 1905 hangar

Huffman Prairie Flying Field, the curve in the grass was their flight pattern

View across Huffman Prairie Flying Field, wondering what’s buried out there?

For further reading:

Incident Wright Flyer III, 14 Jul 1905 - Aviation Safety Network https://aviation-safety.net/wikibase/wiki.php?id=72155

1905 Wright Flyer III http://www.wright-brothers.org/Information_Desk/Just_the_Facts/Airplanes/Flyer_III.htm

Wright "Flyers," Replicas, and Reproductions: A Reign of Dangerous and Deadly http://truthinaviationhistory.blogspot.com/2016/05/