USU Flyer Has the "Wright" Stuff

After two years and more than 10,000 hours of hard work from Utah State University engineering and aviation technology students and faculty, the USU Wright Flyer literally "took-off" in March of 2003. Its maiden voyage into the skies occurred at the historic Wendover Airport on the Salt Flats of Utah's west desert to many cheers, thus beginning an international wave of attention on the project.

A group of Utah State students and faculty, representing various areas in the College of Engineering, built the 1905 replica of the Wright brothers' plane to honor the 100th anniversary of powered flight. The students saw to every aspect of the project. A group of mechanical engineering students took on the design responsibility, while a group of aviation maintenance students built the aircraft.

Dave Widauf and Charles Larsen, two now retired engineering technology education professors from Utah State, thought it would be both an interesting challenge and a fun endeavor to build a replica of the Wright brothers' aircraft.

"We thought, why not celebrate the 100-year anniversary of powered flight by building a modern replica of the Wright Flyer and involve our students," said Widauf.

Ph.D student Nick Alley, Ogden, who headed the design team of 10 mechanical engineering seniors, was all smiles. He said the thousands of design hours put into this project have paid off as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. In the process of applying knowledge in a unique way, he said, he has also come to better understand and appreciate the genius and tenacity of his heroes, the Wright brothers.

Gaylen Jensen, a junior in aviation maintenance from Highland, Utah, echoed those words. He was joined by fellow students James Call, Logan; Scott Wilson, Idaho; and Jill Stout, Tooele. Instead of the beaches of California, they chose the desert of Wendover to spend their entire spring break to see their work take flight.

Jensen's passion for aviation and knowledge about the Wright brothers made him a font of information ranging from the function of rudders, wings and lift to the distance of the Wright brothers' first flight equaling the wing span of a 747.

Jensen said this opportunity not only allowed him to participate in re-creating the genius of the Wright brothers, but to share in their creativity by taking what they started to a new, higher level. USU College of Engineering students teamed with the Space Dynamics Laboratory and the U.S. Air Force to build the plane. The full-scale flyer is a futuristic replica of the original Wright brothers' aircraft. Utah State students designed and built the flyer using space-age materials as the Wright Brothers may have done if they were designing their plane today.

The latest Kevlar and graphite materials, used in space shuttles and next-generation rockets and military aircrafts, replaced the muslin and spruce used in the original flyer. The advanced composites and other state-of-the-art materials are disguised to look like the materials used by the Wrights, so the plane looks like a duplicate of the original.

And the aircraft came full circle in July of 2003 when, after touring Utah and many parts of the nation, it became the first plane to fly over Huffman Prairie Flying Field in Dayton, Ohio, since Orville and Wilbur Wright did so nearly 100 years ago. The USU Wright Flyer circled the prairie above a crowd of onlookers who cheered wildly as it completed its first circle. Piloted by Utah State University alum Wayne Larsen, a crop duster from Brigham City, the USU Wright Flyer made history that morning.

Each year, thousands of flight buffs visit Huffman Prairie Flying Field near Dayton, Ohio, to visit the site where the Wright brothers perfected the craft of flying. After completing their first test flights on Dec. 17, 1903, in Kitty Hawk, N.C., the Wrights returned home to Ohio to tinker with their aircraft and to conduct many more test flights. It was at Huffman Prairie Flying Field that the Wrights finessed the flyer's maneuverability and success in flight.

"This was an emotional experience for me and it was a fantastic experience for me," said Larsen about the flight. "We had help in the seats today. It was as though the Wright brothers were sitting next to me."

Many of the students, as well as Widauf and Larsen, were on hand to witness the special flight that would bring the USU Wright Flyer to the high point of its career. As the plane landed on a nearby landing strip at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base and taxied over to the prairie, there were many tears of joy and shouts of adulation. And because the team wants to give the opportunity to see the aircraft in flight in the historic location, the USU Wright Flyer will now call the Dayton Aviation National Historical Park home.

"A great partnership has arisen from hundreds of miles away," said Steven Wright, great-grandnephew of the Wright brothers. "Utah State has been so unselfish in letting us have this machine here in Dayton on exhibit. For years, people would come to Dayton to see a Wright machine and they would have to see it sitting on the ground. Now people can come from all over the world to see a Wright machine fly in the air. It's a beautiful profile and a machine that really looks like a Wright machine. We would like to thank everyone involved in the project."

Ohio celebrated throughout the month of July in 2003 with the Centennial Flight Celebration in Dayton, and the USU Wright Flyer team was grateful to be included as part of the events. The team attended the opening ceremony for the centennial celebration and President George Bush's Independence Day speech at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, where the team was in the VIP area.

The USU Wright Flyer is missed in Utah, but the team celebrated as it made the flyer available to thousands at the cradle of aviation, Huffman Prairie.