The EAA’s Wright Flyer — the one that everyone saw on the 17th — is now back in Virginia and will be heading for Dearborn, Mich., in a few weeks, to its permanent home at the Henry Ford Museum. It will never fly again. A second copy of the airplane was sponsored by the late Harry Combs, and has been donated to the National Park Service for static display. But Hyde also has a third copy in the works, and plans to use that aircraft to continue his flight-testing program. “The engines and propellers are all done, and the rest should go together pretty quickly,” he said. He plans to continue working with his experienced flight-test crew, and return to the Outer Banks with the Wright Flyer, sometime soon.
“We don’t have a time frame yet,” he said. But he was touched by the support from the public, and even the press, after the failed flight on Dec. 17. “The people understood. They told us, now they know how difficult it really was for the Wright brothers. Don’t be discouraged, they said.” So for those who still hope to someday see a 1903 Wright Flyer reproduction take off and fly as they imagine it should, the effort will go on.
