A celebration of powered flight

  • Published
  • By Amy Rollins
  • Skywrighter Staff
WRIGHT-PATTERSON AIR FORCE BASE, Ohio --  Col. John Devillier, commander of the 88th Air Base Wing at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, along with the great-grandniece and great-grandnephew of the Wright brothers, joined together the morning of Dec. 17 to lay a wreath commemorating the 111th anniversary of practical powered flight on Wright Memorial Hill near the base's Area B.

"When you consider the events on Huffman Prairie in 1903 and how quickly powered flight has come, it is truly remarkable what these two men started so long ago," Devillier told the dozens of people gathered in front of a pink granite obelisk honoring the American brothers, inventors and aviation pioneers. "Powered flight is an incredible innovation -- arguably the most significant innovation in the 20th century and it started right here in the greater Dayton area."  

The colonel added that Wright-Patterson AFB is the center for innovation for the Air Force for many reasons, starting with the Wright brothers and now due in part to the presence of the Air Force Institute of Technology, the Air Force Research Laboratory, the Air Force Life Cycle Management Center, and Air Force Material Command.

"All of these great mission partners team up in order to move aerospace forward," Devillier said. "I know Orville and Wilbur Wright would be amazed at what they started and how far it has come."

The colonel offered examples of this, noting that an Air Force aircraft can fly directly from Dover AFB, Delaware, to Kyrgyzstan; something can be placed on a moving asteroid; and someone can fly around the world in less than 24 hours.

"It is truly, truly incredible what we can now do because of powered flight. It has changed our world significantly," Devillier said. "Many of us owe our livelihoods to what Orville and Wilbur Wright started so long ago."

The event's keynote speaker - photographer, graphic designer and aviation author Dan Patterson - discussed the Wright brothers and their history as inventors and aviators.

They flew the 1903 Flyer four times -- a total time in the air of less than two minutes. those precious seconds proved to them that their theories were solid," he said.

Patterson described the brothers' triumph in 1905 with the Wright Flyer III over nearby Huffman Prairie and subsequent flights in Le Mans, France, in 1908.

"Those flights put Orville and Wilbur and Dayton, Ohio, on the international map," Patterson said.

The flight school Orville Wright established in 1913   at Huffman Prairie trained Army pilots, sowing "the seed corn of the entire American Air Force."

 Following Patterson's remarks, Dean Alexander, Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historic Park superintendent, presented a presidential proclamation prior to the wreath-laying ceremony.

Devillier and both Wright descendants placed a wreath in front of the obelisk of the memorial, which was dedicated in 1940 with Orville Wright in attendance.

One of the highlights of the event was the flyover of a North American B-25 Mitchell bomber, the "Champaign Gal," of the Champaign Aviation Museum in Urbana. ›e Champaign Gal encircled the memorial twice before flying back to its airfield.

Following the formal ceremony, Frank Winslow, chairman of the National Aviation Heritage Alliance, presented a $1,500 scholarship to aviation student Michael Griffith, a junior at Beavercreek High School, who said he hopes to be a Navy aviator.

The scholarship is named in honor of Mitchell Cary and Donald Gum, aviators who died July 30, 2011, when the Wright "B" Flyer Inc.'s "Silver Bird" replica they were testing crashed. Cary was a retired Air Force test pilot who worked as an engineer at Aeronautical Systems Center at Wright-Patterson AFB; Gum also was retired from the base.

"This scholarship will help me jump-start my aviation career," he said.