Wilbur and Orville Wright’s 1909 Triumph for the U.S. Army
Dec 18, 2024
By Mark Strauss
Wright Military Flyer
In 1908, the U.S. Army Signal Corps solicited bids for a two-seat observation aircraft that could remain aloft for one hour and would be sturdy enough to make an emergency landing. Wilbur and Orville Wright took up the challenge. Their initial effort to build a military airplane, however, ended in a crash that killed an Army officer. But the brothers later returned with a modified model that, on July 27, 1909, made a record flight of one hour, 12 minutes, and 40 seconds. On August 2, the Signal Corps accepted the Wright airplane; two years later, the U.S. Department of War donated it to the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D.C. Of the three Wright airplanes in the collection of the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, the 1909 Wright Military Flyer retains the largest percentage of its original material and components.
Roll control was achieved through wing warping, a technique that used cables to pull on the trailing edges of the right and left wings, twisting them in opposite directions.
A 30- to 40-horsepower vertical four-cylinder engine drove two wood pusher propellers via a sprocket-and-chain transmission system.
The 1909 model had a smaller wing area than earlier Wright aircraft, and it flew faster.
The elevators were placed in a canard configuration at the front of the aircraft to control pitch, with the rudders positioned aft. In modern airplanes, elevators are typically part of the tail.
The Army paid the Wright brothers $30,000 for their airplane, equivalent to more than $1 million today.
Over the course of training flights in 1910 and 1911, the Army made additional modifications—notably, the addition of wheels to the ski-like skids that constituted the original landing gear.
This article, originally titled “Wilbur and Orville’s 1909 Triumph,” is from the Winter 2025 issue of Air & Space Quarterly, the National Air and Space Museum's signature magazine that explores topics in aviation and space, from the earliest moments of flight to today. Explore the full issue.
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