 
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:
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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
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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.
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Easy-Built's Flyer 1. |
Plastic Models
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| 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.
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Hasegawa's miniature Flyer.
Revell's Monogram model kit, now discontinued.
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Historic Kites
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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.
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Stratton's historic kite is not an exact replica of
the Flyer 1, but it looks very close -- and it flies very well.
Incanabula's Wright Kite.
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Paper Models
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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.
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The Whitewings Wright Flyer model is made from paper
and a little balsa wood. |
Finding Discontinued Model Kits
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| 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."
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