The Wright Experience in Warrenton, Virginia is home to an outstanding collection of Wright aircraft reproductions created over 25 years of meticulous study into Wilbur and Orville Wright’s engineering and fabrication practices. The image seen above, showing a period photograph blended with a Wright Experience reproduction, is said to illustrate the team’s mission statement.
The pedigree of our research is the few existing artifacts that exist in museums, period photographs and the few surviving aircraft that were “restored” in the past to prevailing standards at the time. There are no blueprints for Wright aircraft. Using period photographs and CAD we have been able to recreate for reproduction most of the Wright aircraft. This effort incorporates the orientation of each piece of hardware to match the period photos, the correct fabric, the correct dimensions and original method of construction with new materials the same as the original materials. Never has there been an attempt to modify, improve or change in any way what exists in the photos.
Thanks to the generosity of Wright Experience team member E.Scott Rawlings, we are sharing a collection of images detailing many of their machines, which are currently available for sale.
Part 1 of this series examined the team’s 1902 Wright Glider, while part 2 featured their outstanding replica of the 1909 Military Flyer. This week we will continue our look at the 1909 machine, focusing on its construction and the painstaking efforts the team has made to create the most historically accurate aircraft possible.
Continue reading Aircraft of The Wright Experience (Part 3): The 1909 Wright Military Flyer (Continued)
