Wright Flyer Timeline

Major progress toward fully controlled flight was achieved with a new machine, the Wright Flyer II, built in 1904 as an improved version of the original Flyer.

Image source: Wright Flyer II

In 1904, the Wrights continued refining their designs and piloting techniques in order to obtain fully controlled flight.

Progress was even more decisive in 1905 with the Wright Flyer III, in which Wilbur made a 39-minute, 24-mile (39 km) nonstop circling flight on October 5.

Image source: Wright Flyer III

The Wrights' original concept of simultaneous coordinated roll and yaw control (rear rudder deflection), discovered in 1902, perfected in 1903–1905, and patented in 1906, represents the solution to controlled flight used today on virtually every fixed-wing aircraft.

In 1909, the Wright Military Flyer became the world's first military aircraft after successful tests on June 3, 1909, marking aviation's entry into military service.

Image source: Wright Model A

In 1914, Glenn Curtiss had exhausted the appeal process in a patent infringement legal battle with the Wrights. He sought to prove Langley's Aerodrome, which failed piloted tests nine days before the Wrights' successful 1903 flight, capable of controlled piloted flight, to invalidate the Wrights' wide-sweeping patents.

The crankcase, crankshaft, and flywheel of the original engine had been sent to the Aero Club of America in New York for an exhibit in 1906 and were never returned to the Wrights.

In 1910 the Wrights offered the Flyer as an exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution, but the Smithsonian declined, saying it would be willing to display other aeronautical artifacts from the brothers.

In early 1912 Roy Knabenshue, the Wrights' Exhibition team manager, asked Wilbur what they planned to do with the Flyer. Wilbur said they most likely would burn it, as they had the 1904 machine.

The Great Dayton Flood of March 1913 covered the Flyer in mud and water for eleven days, causing significant damage while it was stored in Dayton.

Image source: Great Dayton Flood

Wilbur died in 1912, and in 1916 Orville brought the Flyer out of storage and prepared it for display at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Between 1916 and 1928, the Wright Flyer was prepared and assembled for exhibition under Orville's supervision by Wright Company mechanic Jim Jacobs several times. It was briefly exhibited at MIT in 1916, the New York Aero Shows in 1917 and 1919, a Society of Automotive Engineers meeting in Dayton in 1918, and the National Air Races in Dayton in 1924.

In 1925, Orville attempted to pressure the Smithsonian by warning that he would send the Flyer to the Science Museum in London if the Institution refused to recognize his and Wilbur's accomplishment.

The threat did not achieve its intended effect, and on January 28, 1928, Orville shipped the Kitty Hawk to London for display at the Science Museum.

In 1942, under new secretary Charles Abbot, the Smithsonian published a list of 35 Curtiss modifications to the Aerodrome and a retraction of its long-held claims, acknowledging that 'It is everywhere acknowledged that the Wright brothers were the first to make sustained flights in a heavier-than-air machine at Kitty Hawk.'

Image source: Samuel Langley

The Flyer joined the Smithsonian Institution's collection of historic aircraft in 1948 after the end of a long and bitter dispute between Orville and the Institution over its refusal to recognize the Flyer as the first successful airplane.

Charlie Taylor relates in a 1948 article that the Flyer nearly got disposed of by the Wrights, underscoring how close the historic aircraft came to destruction before its preservation.

Image source: Charlie Taylor (mechanic)

On October 18, 1948, the official handover of the Kitty Hawk was made to Livingston L. Satterthwaite, formalizing the transfer of the aircraft back from Britain to American custody.

On November 11, 1948, the Kitty Hawk arrived in North America on board the Mauretania with 1,111 passengers, completing its journey home from the Science Museum in London.

Image source: RMS Mauretania (1938)

The Wright Flyer was put on display in the Arts and Industries Building of the Smithsonian on December 17, 1948, exactly 45 years after its only successful flights. Orville did not live to see this, as he had died that January.

Image source: Arts and Industries Building

In 1976, the Wright Flyer was moved to the Milestones of Flight Gallery of the new National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

Image source: National Air and Space Museum

In 1981, discussion began on the need to restore the Wright Flyer from the aging it sustained after many decades on display. The fabric covering from the 1927 restoration was discolored and marked with water spots.

The Flyer underwent restoration in 1985, receiving a new covering more accurate to the original than that of the 1927 restoration. The effects were intended to last 75 years, until 2060, before another restoration would be required.

Since 2003 the Wright Flyer has resided in a special exhibit in the National Air and Space Museum titled 'The Wright Brothers and the Invention of the Aerial Age,' in recognition of the 100th anniversary of their first flight.

In 1969, portions of the original fabric and wood from the Wright Flyer traveled to the Moon and its surface in Neil Armstrong's personal preference kit aboard the Apollo 11 Lunar Module Eagle, and then back to Earth in the Command module Columbia.

Image source: Apollo 11

In 1978, 23-year-old Ken Kellett built a replica Wright Flyer in Colorado and flew it at Kitty Hawk on the 75th and 80th anniversaries of the first flight there.

The Los Angeles Section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) built a full-scale replica of the 1903 Wright Flyer between 1979 and 1993 using plans published by the Smithsonian Institution in 1950.

In 1986, separate portions of original wood and fabric, as well as a note by Orville Wright, were taken by North Carolina astronaut Michael Smith aboard the Space Shuttle Challenger on mission STS-51-L, which was destroyed soon after liftoff.

Image source: Space Shuttle Challenger disaster

As the 100th anniversary approached, a completed Flyer reproduction was brought to Kitty Hawk and pilot Kevin Kochersberger attempted to recreate the original flight at 10:35 on December 17, 2003, on level ground near the bottom of Kill Devil Hill.

A small piece of the Wright Flyer's wing fabric is attached to a cable underneath the solar panel of the helicopter Ingenuity, which became the first vehicle to perform a controlled atmospheric flight on Mars on April 19, 2021.

Image source: Ingenuity (helicopter)