Authors: Ben Ruhe
Date Submitted: February 28, 1999
Article Type: Journal

The role of kites in the development of the first manned, powered aircraft, the Wright Flyer of 1903, has become clearer through the work of Ken Hyde and Rick Young. The Virginia pair and their dedicated team-known collectively as the Wright Experience-are busy constructing every one of the development flying machines made by the Wrights over the years so they can celebrate the centennial of flight in the year 2003 in real style. Where else to fly this squadron than the Outer Banks of North Carolina, where the epochal first four powered flights were carried out? It will be a state and national celebration, a rediscovery of a lost aeronautical heritage. Put it on your calendar: December 17, 2003.

All told, Hyde-Young are building:

-A five-foot biplane kite from 1899, made on the basis of notes and sketches filed by Wilbur and Orville Wright in a patent suit. The kite had attachments permitting wing-warping, which was the key to flight control, in the view of the inventors. Earlier Wright kites are unknown, although there were undoubtedly some, including models flown in childhood. There was also a 17-foot 1900 kite, usually flown tethered. For gliding tests, it was too small to carry a man, although it did tote ballast and several times a small boy.

-Three gliders (they can be considered untethered kites) dated 1901 and 1902 and 1911. The ’01 had severe stability problems. The ’02 model, complete with vertical rudder, and with perfected wing-warping techniques, proved to be the answer the Wrights sought. (The 1911 kite was a Wright experiment in stability, as in the flight of a bird, rather than controlled instability, the case with their previous aircraft designs. Orville Wright flew it at Kitty Hawk with such success he once kept it hovering more than nine minutes, covering just 40 yards of distance).