"The Spirit of Dayton 1" is On the Road

While it may be a few more months before we have a glider in the air, we do have it on the road. We began showing the glider - christened "The Spirit of Dayton 1" - at the Wright Cycle Shop (part of the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historic Park) on August 19, 1999, and we've been showing it ever since.

As most of you know, the only un-historical feature about our glider is that it knocks down. It comes apart in several pieces, allowing us to get through a normal door and set it up in a cafeteria, gymnasium, foyer - any large space.

We've developed special stands that allow us to display the glider in different ways. At the Dayton Engineer's Club and Hara Arena, for example, it rested 8 feet in the air so people could walk around underneath it. And we rolled it down a street for the Heritage Festival Parade in West Milton, Ohio.

Most important, we are now making school visits! On October 28, we visited the Sugar Grove School in Fredrick, Ohio showing both the 1902 glider and the 1899 Wright Kite. The educational goal of this presentation was to teach the kids the importance of the Wright brother's work in aircraft control. We conducted exercises and games that taught the concepts of roll, pitch, and yaw - the three-dimensional controls you need to balance an aircraft in the air.

How did the presentation go? Very well, if the comments of the kids and parents can be believed. We bumped into one set of parents at Hara Arena a few weeks after we had been to Sugar Grove. They told us that their son had dragged them to the library that night and took out every book he could find on the Wright brothers. The next weekend he insisted on visiting the Air Force Museum. That's the sort of excitement we had hoped to inspire.

If you'd like a warm fuzzy feeling and a good chuckle,  read some of the letters we've gotten from the students who have seen the glider. Click here .

Click on the pictures to enlarge them.

The glider is designed to breakdown and store in a small cargo van. It sets up in about an hour.

The assembled glider normally rests on special pivoting trestles. These allow us to demonstrate the wing warping mechanism.

We can also display it in the air, either by hanging it or resting it on extended trestles. These hold it 8 feet in the air so people can walk around beneath it. On one occasion we set it up in a banquet hall so folks could dine beneath it.

Or we call roll it down a street in a parade on special dollies.

Of course, it always looks best surrounded by kids.