Wright Flyer III

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Wright Flyer
Orville Wright with Flyer III on October 4, 1905 over the Huffman Prairie (Dayton, Ohio) Orville Wright with Flyer III on October 4, 1905 over the Huffman Prairie (Dayton, Ohio)
Type: Biplane - pusher propeller - airplane
Design country:

United States 45United States United States

Manufacturer:

Wright Brothers

First flight:

June 23, 1905

The Wright Flyer III was the Wright brothers' third powered aircraft built in 1905.

history

Orville Wright flew the Flyer III for the first time on 23 June 1905. The Flyer III had a new hull, but in principle the same drive system as the Flyer II and Flyer I . After an accident on July 14, 1905, the size of the elevator and its distance to the wings were doubled. The control of the wing twist was combined in one joystick .

On October 5, 1905, Wilbur Wright made a 38.6 km flight in 39.5 minutes. Four days later they wrote to the US Secretary of War and offered the plane for sale to no avail. On November 7, 1905, they dismantled the prototype. It was not overhauled until 1908 and flown again into Kitty Hawk between May 6 and 14, 1908 . On May 14th, Wilbur Wright fell into a sand dune; the damaged aircraft was stored in a warehouse and was not restored until 1947.

In order to protect their patent rights, the Wrights allowed few eyewitnesses on their early flights. But they documented the first steps of the motorized flight and other details of that time with over 300 photographs they took themselves.

The Wrights built a new aircraft, the Wright Model A , after the May 14, 1908 crash . On September 9, a demonstration flight for the US Army took place in Fort Myer . The flight took about an hour. On September 9th, the first passenger, Charlie Furnas, was taken. 5 days later there was a fall from a height of 30 m, in which the flying officer Thomas Selfridge was killed and Orville Wright sustained a complicated skull fracture.

The Flyer III was restored with the help of Orville Wright between 1947 and 1950 and is now on display at the Wright Brothers Aviation Center in the Carillon Historical Park in Dayton, Ohio . In June 1990, the aircraft was entered as a construction on the National Register of Historic Places . At the same time it was recognized as a National Historic Landmark . The 1905 Wright Flyer III is the only aircraft that has the status of a National Historic Landmark.

Technical specifications

Parameter Data Wright Flyer III
crew 1
length 8.54 m
span 12.35 m
Wing area 46.8 m²
height 3.81 m
Takeoff mass 323 kg
Top speed 56 km / h
Engine a water-cooled four-cylinder in-line engine with 20 HP (14.9 kW)

Web links

Commons : Wright Flyer III  - Collection of Images, Videos, and Audio Files

Remarks

  1. ^ Wright Flyer III in the National Register Information System. National Park Service , accessed February 7, 2020.
  2. Listing of National Historic Landmarks by State: Ohio. National Park Service , accessed February 7, 2020.