Sept 21-Huffman Prairie Flying Field, Dayton, OH

We toured the USAF Museum at Wright-Patterson AFB for an hour or so, and then played most of the afternoon at the prairie where the Wright Brothers flew. The brothers lived in Dayton, running a bicycle shop. Their first flight was at Kitty Hawk, NC-but their first practical airplane (they could steer it) was built and tested on Huffman’s Field. They rode an electric trolley from town out to the field and built a hangar. Huffman (a farmer), loaned them the field and just asked that they move the cows out of the field when they were using their flying machine! The 84 acre field was far enough from town and hidden from the trolley line. No one actually believed they could fly and the brothers were keeping it a secret while they tested and refined the plane. The catapult that I’m playing on was used to launch the plane along a track. This was the first dependable, fully controllable aircraft-the Wright Flyer III, in 1905. They established a flying school here too, and trained lots of new pilots. The Wright Flyer was sold commercially and to the military. I’ll post a few silly photos of us “flying” at Huffman’s Prarie!