Wright flyer of 1905

Wright flyer of 1905, third powered airplane designed, built, and flown by Wilbur and Orville Wright. It represented the final step in their quest for a practical airplane capable of staying aloft for extended periods of time under the complete control of the pilot.

(Read Orville Wright’s 1929 biography of his brother, Wilbur.)

The flyer took to the air for the first time on June 23, 1905, at Huffman Prairie, a pasture located on the streetcar line some 8 miles (13 km) east of Dayton, Ohio. It was designed along the lines of the Wrights’ first flyer of 1903 and a second model of 1904, but it also incorporated several important improvements. First, it was powered by the same four-cylinder engine that had propelled the 1904 flyer, but constant operation had smoothed the pistons and cylinder walls, so that by the end of the 1905 flying season the engine was generating 20–22 horsepower (compared with 15–16 horsepower the year before). An improved propeller design further increased the efficiency of the 1905 propulsion system. In order to correct a tendency on the part of the airplane to pitch dangerously in flight, the Wrights increased the distance between the leading edge of the wing and the stabilizer, a pair of horizontal surfaces located to the front of the craft. As in the first Wright flyer, the pilot lay prone on the lower wing, but in the 1905 machine he was given direct control of the vertical rudder at the rear of the craft by means of a hand lever.

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During the 1905 season the Wrights further developed a catapult launch system designed to overcome the problem of taking off in the light winds prevailing at Huffman Prairie. A 1,400–1,600-pound (635–725-kilogram) weight was pulled to the top of a derrick at the rear of the launch rail. A half-inch line ran over pulleys at the top and bottom of the derrick, down the length of the rail, over another pulley, and back to the airplane, where it was attached to a quick-release clamp. When the weight was dropped, the airplane sped down the track and into the air. By October 1905 the Wrights were circling Huffman Prairie in flights of a half-hour’s duration.

In 1908 the machine, outfitted with a new set of controls and upright seating, was flown at the Kill Devil Hills, near Kitty Hawk, N.C. (the site of the Wright brothers’ first flight). There it became the first airplane to carry a passenger (Charles Furnas, one of the Wrights’ mechanics). The plane was partially disassembled and left at Kitty Hawk, where for three years it suffered from vandalism and from exposure to the elements until the remaining parts were stored in a small museum in Pittsfield, Mass. In 1947 restoration of the machine commenced under the supervision of Orville Wright. Since 1950 the airplane has been on exhibit in a hall at Carillon Historical Park, Dayton.