1911 Wright B makes first flight around the pattern!

[Rick Whittridge]

Today was the first time the 1911 Wright B made its first flight around the pattern. The plane had to be disasembled & moved to another airport 20 miles from its home base. I helped with the move & reasembly of the plane this afternoon. We kept waiting for the wind to lay down & wait for the local news people to show up (they never did) so we flew it about 6:00 PM. This is the first time a turn was ever attempted so everybody was nervous as the pilot climbed into the air. It preformed without any trouble & flew for six minutes. Everybody was happy so we put it in a hangar & will return in the morning for one more flight. After this flight it will be torn back apart,moved to another airport & put on display for awhile then given to the Greene County Historical Society where they will hang it from there ceiling.:drum:

[Vance]

Congratulations Rick,

That looks to be a wonderful adventure to be involved in.

Thank you for the inspiration, Vance

[animal]

Oh wow, that is so cool to see something like that built and flown.

[barnstorm2]

Nice! but bittersweet!

Whats up with the news people! That ticks me off. Something great like this and they are a no-show but a GA plane runs over a taxiway light and it will be on all the stations with video... arrgh.

Also, it seems a shame to me to retire this craft. I wish they would keep it in service like the one south of Dayton at Wright Bros airport.

You are very lucky to be involved and be at such a cool airport.

[C. Beaty]

That looks like a faithful reproduction of the original, Rick, but I couldn’t tell about the engine. Surely someone didn’t go to the trouble of duplicating an original Wright engine?

Also, the Wrights crossed the rudder cables to make their machines steer like bicycles/tricycles but I don’t expect a modern pilot would go quite that far for the sake of historical accuracy.

[Ga6riel]

original film made it look kinda shakey in pitch control too

[Cobra Doc]

Flyable airplanes should be flown, not hung on wires.

[barnstorm2]

That looks like a faithful reproduction of the original, Rick, but I couldn’t tell about the engine. Surely someone didn’t go to the trouble of duplicating an original Wright engine?

Also, the Wrights crossed the rudder cables to make their machines steer like bicycles/tricycles but I don’t expect a modern pilot would go quite that far for the sake of historical accuracy.

The 'other' B model in Dayton uses a small Lycoming engine. You get a flight around the pattern for a $150 donation. I would like to try that some day.

The Lycomming version has chewed up the chain to the props more than once I have heard.

[Hognose]

Surely someone didn’t go to the trouble of duplicating an original Wright engine?

Steve and Jim Hay have made a couple of the engines. Ingenious. The intake valve has no valve gear but is opened by cylinder vacuum working against its return spring! Someone else duplicated the Wright/Taylor engine also. Ken Hyde's ("The Wright Experience") plane had a replica Wright engine but I dunno if it came from the Hays or elsewhere.

I know that the Hays were selling many of their rare, old, and reproduction engines a couple years ago.

The Wright control system underwent a lot of evolution. the original flyer had two sticks, and you lay in a cradle and swung your hips to control the wing-warping, IIRC.

Wing warping in these lo-po planes is a challenge. You are often flying very close to max alpha and a warp increases camber and thereby the effective alpha on the wing you are trying to raise... so if a wing drops a little, it passes through a place where you CAN pick it up into a position from which you CANNOT pick it up, and any attempt to do so will only stall it and drop you off on that wing. Everybody who flies a Wright, Blériot or other wing-warper runs into this (and usually runs into the ground right afterward).

That's why they make turns with some trepidation and some operators of these old planes (Rhinebeck, Shuttleworth) just fly them straight and level and don't even attempt turns.

Still, what could be cooler than having "Wright Flyer" in your logbook?

cheers

-=K=-

[C. Beaty]

Suction operated intake valves were the norm in turn of the century low speed engines. Just a light valve spring and suction did the rest.

Wing warping produces the same effect as adverse aileron yaw where the low aileron tries to drag you out of the turn.

Modern airplanes are set up so there is very little down aileron; mostly up aileron.

At first thought, I expect wing warping could have been set up the same way had it occurred to the Wright Brothers or had they gotten around to it if it did occur to them.

[Rick Whittridge]

Well, Today was not as good as yesterdays flight. The other pilot flew today only he didn`t do so well. The news people finally showed up at 10AM & the machine was fired up & warmed. The pilot went to full power & had a hard time getting off the ground. He climbed & got behind the power curve & could not recover that led to a hard landing in the beans. The good thing he didn`t get hurt but the plane broke one prop & two main spars & ribs. Of course the news guy got it all on film. The good thing they did show the good flight video as well. It was on the 6 O clock news channel 7 Dayton Ohio & will most likelly be back on at 11. They interveiwed me & showed me picking up parts out of the bean field. SAD DAY for everybody involved!
1 just before take off
2 take off
3 damage
4 pilot with news crew

[Heron]

The guys down here that replicated the 14-bis had to use a woman as pilot, weight as a factor. Santos Dumont was a small man.
I thinks they went to Osh this year, Hognose can confirm . . .
I know it hurts when our babies crash or hard landings take place . . . so Ricky keep your heads up and rebuild.
thanks
Heron