Huffman Prairie

Huffman Prairie near Fairborn, northeast of Dayton, was the rough pasture where Wilbur and Orville Wright transformed early flying experiments into a dependable, fully controllable airplane and learned to fly it. Beginning in 1904, they used the field to test the Wright Flyer II and, through about 150 flights in 1904 and 1905, solved practical problems of takeoff, control, and repeated operation, leading to the 1905 Wright Flyer III, which they regarded as the first practical airplane. The site later housed the Wright Flying School and military aviation activities, and it remains important both to aviation history and as a preserved prairie landscape.

Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio · United States