Dayton Wright Bros Airport – Dayton, Ohio – the Birthplace of Aviation
The Dayton-Wright Brothers Airport is hosting the Runway Fest 2016 on August 12 from 6 p.m. to 10 p.m. This is a free family fun event that includes: opening flyover by the Wright B Flyer lookalike, food, inflatables for the kids, live music featuring Ashley Martin, and fireworks at 9:30 p.m. A couple of images from last year’s runway fest are provided below.
For location, click here. For additional information, click here. Read more
New Wright B President George Forest is a retired Senior Program Manager from Serco-North America. Prior to working for Serco-North America, George served more than 40 years of continuous active duty before retiring from the U.S. Air Force at the rank of Lt. Colonel. Read more
Wright B volunteers have been very busy making certain that our flying lookalike, Brownbird, is and continues to be airworthy for the current flying season. Even with all the effort that’s been devoted to the Brownbird, we’ve made considerable progress in construction of the new Wright B lookalike. Much of that progress has been in the fabrication of the tailboom, rudder and the propulsion system parts in the Wright “B” Flyer hangar. Given that it has been a few weeks since we provided an update we decided to do so now.
The first picture shows the basic tailboom frame which will be used in tests to determine whether or not modification is necessary before incorporation in the finished aircraft. The second picture shows Wright B volunteer Bill Rush working on the rudder frame prior to its incorporation in the final tailboom assembly. The third picture shows the tailboom assembly with the rudder frame installed. We also made some progress in fabrication of the propulsion system. Some of that progress can be seen in the fourth picture in which new Wright B volunteer John Bruggar is shown working on the Lycoming engine shroud.
New Wright “B” Flyer Vice-President Fred Tegarden graduated from Vanderbilt University with a Mechanical Engineering degree. He was initially employed Babcock and Wilcox where he conducted stress and performance analyses, and was coordinator with the Field Service Department. He later moved to Cincinnati where he worked for GE Aircraft Engines for 33 years in a variety of engineering design assignments and overall engineering management positions. While at GE, Fred helped create the demonstrator engine which became the highly successful F110 fighter engine, managed the development of the B-1 engine and the engines and exhaust system for the B2 bomber. Near the end of his career, he managed the GE nacelle program which at that time had over 3000 nacelles in service. Fred received a Presidential Volunteer Award for his more than 13 years of volunteer service at National Museum of the Air Force. He is an Associate Fellow of AIAA. His hobbies include wood working, reading, travel, firearms and volunteering with the Wright “B” Flyer, Inc. He currently resides with his wife Catherine in Butler County and has two children by a previous marriage.
Work on the New Wright B Flyer Lookalike is progressing in four areas: wing fabrication, design and construction of the propulsion system, tail boom fabrication, and configuration of the aircraft avionics and electrical system.
EAA Chapter 5 (Geauga County, Ohio) is deep into building the wings. They have complete the wing spars and started on the remaining steel parts. You can view their progress by going to the EAA 5 web site and selecting their north bay web cam. Click here for direct access to the camera. When the wings are completed, they will be close to the NACA 35B airfoil.
Design and fabrication of the propulsion system (engine, chain drive, and propellers) is nearing completion. Integration of the final propulsion design into the aircraft center section will be the next step of the design phase. Lycoming has finished the engine build, and we should have it here in the hangar within a week. Lycoming has been a great partner on the project; we really appreciate their support. In addition, parts are being machined in Texas. When the propeller shafts are built we will get them back here for some final machining.
Work on the tail boom continues on the hangar floor. The boom is pretty much complete; we ar
e working on a few rudder designs that we will test on the ground. This will help us pick the final rudder configuration for the new airplane. Green County EAA Chapter 382 member Steve Glass is shown in this picture preparing to weld parts of the tail boom.
The pilots working group has been reviewing the final configuration for the airplane avionics and electrical system. The avionics that we will install in the airplane will let us operate in the airspace environment called NextGen 2020. Completion of the electrical design will also feed the center section design and planning as most of the parts are installed in that part of the airplane. The Wright Brothers would probably be amazed at how well their design can accommodate modern digital systems.
We have started a GoFundMe site to raise money to complete the project. If you are on Facebook please go to our GoFundMe page, https://www.gofundme.com/Wright-B-Flyer, and “Like” us so we can get the word out.
The Wings & Wheels location has been changed to the Warren County Fairgrounds in Lebanon, Ohio.
NEWS
For immediate release
Contact: Timothy R. Gaffney
Volunteer media director
Phone (cell): (937) 219-8277
Email: [email protected]
Editors: Click on the photo for a downloadable high-resolution image.
OSHKOSH, Wis.—Wright “B” Flyer Inc.’s one-of-a-kind airplane is ready to showcase America’s aviation heritage at the world’s biggest general aviation fly-in.
The Wright “B” Flyer is set to go on display Monday, July 20, at the Experimental Aircraft Association’s (EAA’s) AirVenture 2015 convention, fly-in and air show. The primitive-looking flying machine is a modern lookalike of the Wright brothers’ first factory-built airplane, the Wright Model B.
The Miamisburg, Ohio-based nonprofit organization’s all-volunteer crew shipped the airplane here in a trailer here last week, and on Friday assembled it here and gave it a checkout flight.
The big biplane will put Dayton’s aviation heritage on display to an expected 500,000 people over the course of the week. It will also make EAA members aware of an opportunity to help build the next Wright “B” Flyer in the original Wright brothers’ factory in Dayton—America’s first aircraft factory.
The airplane will be on display in the Vintage Area on Monday. On Tuesday, it will be the feature attraction on Vintage Plaza, where Wright “B” Flyer President Jay Jabour will give a presentation about the airplanes and the new airplane project. It’s scheduled to fly in the daily air show on Thursday and Sunday.
The Brown Bird has been flying since 1982, and the amount of time volunteers need to spend on maintenance has been growing. That and the difficulty of shipping it to remote venues like AirVenture are the main reasons why the organization has decided to build a new one.
Like this airplane—nicknamed “Brown Bird” for its color—the new airplane will use modern materials and components, but it will be made so that two people can load it into a standard shipping container and reassemble it for flight.
Wright “B” Flyer Inc. is an all-volunteer, membership based, 501c3 nonprofit that displays and flies replicas of the Wright brothers’ first factory-built airplane. Its hangar-museum is open Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays from 9 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. Admission is free. Wright “B” Flyer is a partner of the National Aviation Heritage Alliance.
Visit http://wrightfactory.org for more information about the Wright Company factory. Visit https://www.wright-b-flyer.org for more information about the organization and its mission.
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On Saturday, May 30, 2015 the Wright “B” Flyer, Inc. float won the City of Moraine’s 50th Anniversary Parade “Best 50th Year Theme Award” with its “Half-scale Flyer” float. The float depicts Orville Wright and his father, Milton, in a Model “B” flyer while Orville was taking the 82-year-old Milton for his first and only flight. According to city sources the parade had over 70 units including floats, classic cars, the color guard and three bands.. Other units included “the West Carrolton Marching Band, Mail Carriers’ Band and Kettering Civic Band.