I’ve just seen on the lunchtime news a replica of the Wright Brothers Model A flyer (the one designed afte the first flyer) has been tested successfully at Narrowmine in Australia by pilot Col Pay.
It is to appear at an airshow at Narrowmine on the weekend and tour the country after that they said.
By: J Boyle - 30th September 2005 at 02:00
Nice to see the boys from Dayton get some international recognition..
By: JDK - 30th September 2005 at 01:49
Sounds quite the international job. Weren’t Hillman Imps build in Scotland?
The Narromine Pagent is listed here
By: JDK - 30th September 2005 at 01:46
Well spotted Dave – I’d missed that.
More here at the Sydney Morning Herald
The clock will be turned back almost a century next Saturday when a father-and-son team with little aviation experience will find out whether a $250,000 replica they built of the first powered plane to take to the skies in Australia will fly.
The wood and wire Wright Brothers Model A Flyer has been seven years in the making by Keith Hayden and his son Eric, who used original plans supplied by the Short Brothers aircraft company in Ireland.
And when the plane takes to the air at Narromine aerodrome in western NSW, astronaut Buzz Aldrin, the second man to walk on the moon, will be there to watch.
The Haydens hope he may even go for a circuit in the plane, to be flown by experienced pilot Colin Pay, of Scone, who owns a number of old aircraft including a Mustang, Kitty Hawk and Tiger Moth.
In 1909, Englishman Colin Defries became the first person in Australia to fly a Wright Brothers biplane when he climbed four metres into the air at Parramatta and went for 117 metres.
He had not flown before and crashed it the next day.
Eric Hayden said there was some finishing off to be done but the plane would be ready for its October 1 debut at a Narromine air pageant.
Mr Aldrin is to name the replica The Spirit of Flight before take-off.
The plane’s engine, which came out of a 1970s Hillman Imp car, had been modified and rebuilt under the guidance of V8 racing team owner Dick Johnson.
“It is not a case of will this aircraft fly,” Eric Hayden said. “In the days of the Model A, they could fly for 2 hours with a passenger.
“One got to nearly 10,000 feet and Sir Charles Rolls, of Rolls-Royce, bought one and did a double channel crossing. Our replica has not been built to be a static display. It’s being built to fly and that’s what we intend to do with it.”
Mr Hayden said the team had received valuable assistance from Sydney University, which helped with wind-tunnel testing, NASA and the US Air Force Museum in Ohio.
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September 30, 2005 at 1:34 am