The Wright brothers, Orville Wright and Wilbur Wright, were American aviation pioneers generally credited with inventing, building, and flying the world's first successful airplane. They made the first controlled, sustained flight of an engine-powered, heavier-than-air aircraft with the Wright Flyer on December 17, 1903, four miles (6 km) south of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, at what is now known as Kill Devil Hills. In 1904 the Wright brothers developed the Wright Flyer II, which made longer-duration flights including the first circle, followed in 1905 by the first truly practical fixed-wing aircraft, the Wright Flyer III.
The bicycle business of the Wright brothers, the Wright Cycle Company successively occupied six different locations in Dayton, Ohio. Orville and Wilbur Wright began their bicycle repair, rental and sales business in 1892, while continuing to operate a print shop. These shops helped them fund their aeronautical studies.
Wright-Martin Aircraft Corporation was a short-lived aircraft manufacturing business venture between the Wright Company and Glenn L. Martin.
Charles Edward Taylor was an American inventor, mechanic and machinist. He built the first aircraft engine used by the Wright brothers in the Wright Flyer, and was a vital contributor of mechanical skills in the building and maintaining of early Wright engines and airplanes.
The Wright Flyer made the first sustained flight by a manned heavier-than-air powered and controlled aircraft—an airplane—on December 17, 1903. Invented and flown by brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright, it marked the beginning of the pioneer era of aviation.
The Wright Flyer III is the third powered aircraft by the Wright Brothers, built during the winter of 1904–05. Orville Wright made the first flight with it on June 23, 1905. The Wright Flyer III had an airframe of spruce construction with a wing camber of 1-in-20 as used in 1903, rather than the less effective 1-in-25 used in 1904. The new machine was equipped with the engine and other hardware from the scrapped Flyer II and, after major modifications, achieved much greater performance than Flyers I and II.
Huffman Prairie, also known as Huffman Prairie Flying Field or Huffman Field is part of Ohio's Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park. The 84-acre (34-hectare) patch of rough pasture, near Fairborn, northeast of Dayton, is the place where the Wright brothers undertook the task of creating a dependable, fully controllable airplane and training themselves to be pilots. Many early aircraft records were set by the Wrights at the Huffman Prairie.
Carillon Historical Park is a 65-acre park and museum in Dayton, Ohio, which contains historic buildings and exhibits concerning the history of technology and the history of Dayton and its residents from 1796 to the present. As a part of the University of Dayton, the historical elements of the park were the brainchild of Colonel Edward Deeds. The major sections include settlement, transportation, invention, and industry. The park also contains the Carillon Park Railroad, a 7+1⁄2 in gauge miniature railway.
Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park in Dayton, Ohio that commemorates three important historical figures—Wilbur Wright, Orville Wright, and poet Paul Laurence Dunbar—and their work in the Miami Valley.
The Burgess Company was a U.S. airplane manufacturer between 1910 and 1918.
Grover Cleveland Loening was an American aircraft manufacturer.
Harry Aubrey Toulmin Sr. was the American lawyer located in Springfield, Ohio, who wrote the "flying machine" patent application that resulted in the patent granted to Dayton inventors Wilbur and Orville Wright on May 22, 1906.
The Wright Flying School, also known as the Wright School of Aviation, was operated by the Wright Company from 1910 to 1916 and trained 119 individuals to fly Wright airplanes.
The Speedwell Motor Car Company was a Brass Era American automobile manufacturing company established by Pierce Davies Schenck that produced cars from 1907 to 1914. The Great Dayton Flood of 1913 greatly damaged the Speedwell factory and inventory, and the company entered receivership in 1915 after having built an estimated 4,000 cars and trucks.
The Dayton-Wright Company was formed in 1917, on the declaration of war between the United States and Germany, by a group of Ohio investors that included Charles F. Kettering and Edward A. Deeds of Dayton Engineering Laboratories Company (DELCO). Orville Wright lent his name and served as a consultant, but other than that, the location of one of its three factories in the original Wright Company factory buildings in Dayton, Ohio was the only connection to the Wright brothers. In addition to plant 3, Dayton-Wright operated factories in Moraine and Miamisburg, Ohio. During the course of the war, Dayton-Wright produced about 3,000 DH-4s, as well as 400 Standard SJ-1 trainers. The company was hurt by the reputation of the DH-4s it produced as "flaming coffins" or "flying coffins", although they were not in reality more subject to catching fire than other aircraft, and by scandals it faced.
Katharine Wright Haskell was an American teacher, suffragist, and the younger sister of aviation pioneers Wilbur and Orville Wright. She worked closely with her brothers, managing their bicycle shop in Dayton, Ohio when they were away; acting as their right-hand woman and general factotum in Europe; assisting with their correspondence and business affairs; and providing a sounding board for their ideas. She pursued a professional career as a high school teacher in Dayton and became an international celebrity. A significant figure in the early-twentieth-century women's movement, she worked on behalf of woman suffrage in Ohio and served as the third female trustee of Oberlin College.
The Wright brothers patent war centers on the patent that the Wright brothers received for their method of airplane flight control. They were two Americans who are widely credited with inventing and building the world's first flyable airplane and making the first controlled, powered, and sustained heavier-than-air human flight on December 17, 1903.
The Manufacturer's Aircraft Association (MAA) was a trade association and patent pool of U.S. aircraft manufacturers formed in 1917.
Frank Henry Russell was an American aviation pioneer and the first General Manager of the Wright Brothers Company at Dayton, Ohio. He went on to co-found the Burgess Company and the Manufacturers Aircraft Association. He was the Vice President and a director of Curtiss Aeroplane & Motor Company and a director of Curtiss-Wright Corporation.
Hart Ostheimer Berg (1865–1941) was an American-born engineer and businessman. Celebrated for his transatlantic promotion of innovative industrial products in the early twentieth century, he is best known for having represented the Wright Brothers’ aviation interests in Europe.
