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Need to get your bearings? Try our Museum Guide.

Want to ask a question? Tell us something? Arrange a showing of one of our airplanes? Ping:
mailto:[email protected]

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

If you're looking  for model kits to build a 1903 Wright Flyer 1 or other Wright aircraft, here's what we've found:

Wooden Models

If you want to build a detailed wooden model of the Wright Flyer 1, Easy Built Models offers a terrific balsa-wood-and-tissue-paper kit for a model with a 24" wingspan. You can purchase the kit online at:
 http://www.easybuiltmodels.com/kits/d.htm

Hasegawa once offered a 1/8 scale model in their "Museum Series" line, with parts made from wood, brass, cloth, and steel.  These are no longer available, but you can still find them for sale in various places on the Internet. See below.

Dennis Nowlen is an avid modeler who develops small "peanut-scale" rubber band-powered flying historic models, especially made for indoor flying. He has a wonderful 1907 Wright Model A -- very similar to the Wright Flyer 1 -- with an 11-inch wingspan. He also offers two other pioneer aircraft models, the 1903 Langlely Aerodrome and a 1913 Duperdussin. He doesn't have a web site, but you can write:

Nowlen Aero
139 Boardwalk
Greenbrae, CA  94904

The cost of the Wright Model A kit is $11.00. The Aerodrome is $16.95, and the Duperdussin in $18.95. Add $5.00 shipping and handling for each kit.

Easybuilt Flyer.jpg (48799 bytes)
Easy-Built's Flyer 1.

Plastic Models

If you want to build  plastic model of the Flyer, the pickin's are pretty slim. The only one for sale is a 1/72 scale Hasegawa "mini-model" with a wingspan of about 4". These are for sale through Phoenix Models at http://206.183.205.152/. Type "Wright Flyer" into their search engine.

 Revell once offered a great 1/48 scale model Flyer 1 through their Monogram division, but they discontinued it a few years ago. At least one aviation museum, the United States Air Force Museum in Dayton, Ohio, bought up a large stock of the models before they were discontinued, and you can still buy them at the gift store. If you would like to call about availability, the main number of the USAF Museum is (937) 255-3284.  These models also pop up for sale now and then on various places on the Internet. See below.

Hasegawa Flyer.jpg (7688 bytes)
Hasegawa's miniature Flyer.

Monogram Flyer Kit.jpg (8893 bytes)
Revell's Monogram model kit, now discontinued.

Historic Kites

Stratton Kites offers an "historic kite" model of the Wright Flyer 1 -- a large model (5-foot wingspan) that can be flown as a kite. You can purchase these online at http://www.intothewind.com/cgi-bin/
detail.cgi?itemnum=564&sql=kit or contact:

Into The Wind
1408 Pearl St.
Boulder, CO 80302
Order Line: 800-541-0314
International: 303-449-5356
Fax: 303-449-7315

Incanabula, a Canadian company that offers a line of "museum series" replicas and models, has a kit for the 1899 Wright Kite, complete with flying instructions. It's pricey -- $75 -- but it's nicely thought out. You can purchase the kite kit on the web at http://www.museumseries.com/kite.htm.

Stratton Kite.jpg (18288 bytes)
Stratton's historic kite is not an exact replica of the Flyer 1, but it looks very close -- and it flies very well.

Incanabula Kite.jpg (10331 bytes)
Incanabula's Wright Kite.

Paper Models

Whitewings offers a paper model of the Wright Flyer 1. It doesn't look as much like the Flyer as most model makers could wish for, but it does have an advantage over the realistic model -- it flies. You can order this paper model at: http://www.store.yahoo.com/agi-usa/whitewings.html.

Whitewings Flyer.jpg (12043 bytes)
The Whitewings Wright Flyer model is made from paper and a little balsa wood.

Finding Discontinued Model Kits

Often, people buy a model kit with the intention of building it when they get some free time, put it away, and forget about it. Years later, these unassembled kits find their way to yard sales, flea markets, and auctions . There are even dealers who buy up antique and discontinued models, then resell them. One of the best of these is Gasoline Alley Antiques in Seattle, WA. You can find their list of airplane kits online at: http://www.gasolinealleyantiques.com/kitplane.htm.

Both the Monogram and the Hasegawa Wright Flyer 1 models regularly appear on online auctions such as www.ebay.com. Search on the phrase "Wright model."

 

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: November 04, 2001.