A page from The Dayton Air Show: A Photographic Celebration


Ty and I have several goals for our upcoming book, The Dayton Air Show: A Photographic Celebration. One is to show readers the connection between the Dayton Air Show and Dayton’s aviation heritage.

In the first chapter, we trace Dayton’s tradition of air shows and aerial exhibitions all the way back to the Wright brothers’ experimental flights on Huffman Prairie, in Greene County, in 1904 and 1905. I admit we were stretching the case, since the flights weren’t public exhibitions, and the only observers were invited guests, local farmers, and the occasional passersby. But it was no stretch to trace it back to 1910, when Wilbur and Orville established the Wright Company’s exhibition team. They flew all over the country, but the Wrights trained them mainly on their Huffman Prairie Flying Field, now an element of the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park.

Now a leading aviation magazine has made the same connection between the Wright team and air shows, albeit on a national level. The May issue of Air & Space/Smithsonian, the bimonthly magazine of the National Air and Space Museum, carries a feature by Paul Glenshaw, director of the Discovery of Flight Foundation, titled “Ladies and Gentlemen: The Aeroplane!” In it, he describes how the daring — sometimes tragically so — Wright pilots gave many Americans their first glimpse of the new age of flight. (Glenshaw's piece is part of a feature package that includes the magazine's annual air show guide.)

The feature includes a link to another article Glenshaw wrote about the plane the Wright team pilots flew the most, the Wright “B” Flyer. The Dayton Air Show traditionally opens each morning with flybys of a Wright “B” Flyer look-alike, owned and operated by Wright “B” Flyer Inc. It’s more than a one-of-a-kind act: The Wright “B” Flyer look-alike reminds air show spectators that the Wright brothers lived in Dayton, invented the airplane in Dayton, achieved practical flight on Huffman Prairie, and built their airplanes in the Wright Company Factory, which still stands as a part of a Delphi auto parts manufacturing complex.

So, read Glenshaw’s fine story in Air & Space, buy our book when it comes out in June, and come to the air show in July!

Tags: Dayton Air Show Book, Ty Greenlees, Timothy R. Gaffney, Wright Company, Wright "B" Flyer