Huffman Prairie

After their first successful flight at Kitty Hawk in 1903, the Wright brothers needed an isolated field close to home because they could no longer afford extended stays so far away. Huffman Prairie, a hundred-acre pasture seven miles east of Dayton reached by the interurban railway, became that place despite soggy ground, grassy hummocks, surrounding trees that stifled the wind, and tight space. Torrence Huffman allowed them to use the field as long as they shooed away his cattle before take-off. The brothers began flying there in the spring of 1904, but most flights were short and the plane undulated out of control. Although they made 105 flights that year, they spent less than 50 minutes in the air. The 1905 season began much the same, with erratic flying and crash landings, but after Orville survived a frightening crash in mid-July, the brothers made changes and built a new plane that incorporated what they had learned along with some educated guesses. When the Wright Flyer III debuted in late August, it consistently flew multiple circles over the prairie, accidents became rare, and the brothers often landed only when the plane ran out of gas. By the end of 1905, their airplane was sound and reliable, a practical flying machine, and in two short seasons they had advanced powered flight from erratic puddle-jumping to sustained, graceful soaring over Huffman Prairie.

Dayton, Ohio · United States