For our Museum Guide, click on the glider above.
Activities

Where do you
 wish to go?


Home


To find specific information, consult our Museum Guide.

Meanwhile:
How about a
 little music?
We have a selection of tunes that were popular during the first days of aviation, performed by Sue Keller, courtesy the Ragtime Press:

Alexander's Ragtime Band
Irving Berlin 1911
Aviation Rag
Mark Janza 1905
Maple Leaf Rag
Scott Joplin 1909
St. Louis Rag
Tom Turpin 1903
Waiting for the Robert E. Lee
Gilbert/Muir 1912

Welcome to our Activities Wing. In this wing, you'll find:

Will & Orv's Workshop shows you how to build flying machines from the earliest days of aviation. So far, first-to-fly.com volunteers have researched and built several replica Wright aircraft -- the 1878 Wight "Bat," a rubber band-powered helicopter they built when they were kids; the 1899 Wright Kite, their first aeronautical experiment, and the 1902 Wright Glider, the first fully controllable aircraft. We're also collecting plans and instructions for  kites,  rubber band-powered aircraft, model airplanes, and anything else that moves through the air from the same period in which the Wright brothers lived and worked. You will also find sources for plans and materials.

Will & Orv's Workshop

1878 Wright Bat
1899 Wright Kite
1902 Wright Glider
The Box Experiment
Making a Box
Twisting the Box
2/3-Scale Wright Kite


Assembling the 1902 Wright glider frame.


Covering a wing.


Squaring and aligning the glider wings.

The Spirit of Dayton Project is an educational adventure in early aviation -- and you are invited to take part!. We've have put together a portable museum of the Wright brothers -- including a full- size Wright airplane -- that we will bring to your school, museum, or organization on request. We've also outlined a national program in which children  build a 1903 Wright Flyer 1 replica.  And we've just begun work on a flying reproduction of the 1905 Wright Flyer 3, the world's first practical aircraft. This will become the centerpiece in a living museum of pioneer aviation.

The Spirit of Dayton

The Wright School Tour
A Portable Museum
Curriculum
Commendations
Kid's Comments
Kids Build a Flyer!
The Wrights Fly Again
The Real McCoy


This full-size reproduction of the 1902 Wright glider was built to tour schools and museums.


Working with two other groups, we've developed a program that will allow children across North America to participate in the construction of a replica 1903 Flyer.


And we've begun work on a flying reproduction of the 1905 Wright Flyer 3.

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Like all good scholars, we don't pretend to have all the answers, and we're constantly searching for new information or ways to make our exhibits better and more accurate. We also welcome Wright scholars and enthusiasts who would like to participate. If you have information that we should include, or want to add to what's already here, please write. Address your comments to mailto:[email protected].
Last updated: December 30, 1999.