Rain and lack of wind keeps Wright Flier on the ground

[senorpepr]

KILL DEVIL HILLS, N.C. (AP) - After waiting through a morning of downpours, some 35,000 people watched as a replica of the airplane used during the Wright brothers' first flight began its crawl down a wooden launching track.

The flyer's front rose for a moment - and then pilot Kevin Kochersberger cut the engine and it plopped into wet sand. The crowd groaned.

Despite Wednesday's failed re-enactment, aviation enthusiasts said they were happy to be there for the event, which marked the 100th anniversary of the Wrights' first flight on Dec. 17, 1903.

"It would have been a nice addition to the thing, but I don't think it's critical," said Peck Young of Austin, Texas. "I think the whole event has been commemorating the flight."

The crowd cheered President Bush, who arrived by helicopter to remind the shivering crowd that bad weather hadn't stopped the Wrights.

"There must have been times when they had to fight their own doubts," he said. "They pressed on, believing in the great work they had begun and in their own capacity to see it though. We would not know their names today if these men had been pessimists."

Bush left before the reenactment. As his departing Air Force One passed over the park, it dipped its right wing, as if in salute.

The re-enactment was to have been the climax of a six-day festival honoring the Ohio brothers' feat.
The Wright flyer reproduction - 605 pounds, with authentic spruce ribs and a wingspan of 40 feet - matched the brothers' work down to the thread count of the muslin covering its wings, and the frustration it produced.

Orville and Wilbur Wright crashed their flyer once, on Dec. 14, before pulling off four successful flights on Dec. 17 in the Kill Devil Hills south of Kitty Hawk.

On that day, the concern was too much wind. On Wednesday, it was too little, coupled with humidity that stifled the plane's small engine.

The rain eased shortly before 10 a.m. but the wind was still low, so organizers elected to wait a couple of hours for more favorable conditions. They didn't come.

At about noon, the delicate replica was pulled out of an exhibit tent where it has been on display all week. About half an hour later, its engine roared as it began the short trip that ended in the sand.

The team pulled the plane back out about three hours later, after minor repairs to the front lift assembly and engine. They started the engine, but stopped a few minutes later when the wind speed remained low.

The crowd, still strong despite the weather and the wait, cheered loudly as Kochersberger cut power with a shrug and the plane was towed back inside.

There was no plan to fly the plane, created at a cost of $1.2 million, on another day. The craft, financed by the Ford Motor Co., is destined for the Ford Museum in Dearborn, Mich.

"The moist conditions that are out there are not the best for that engine," said master builder Ken Hyde, founder of The Wright Experience.

The Warrenton, Va., group has spent a decade researching the Wrights' aircraft and was hired to build the replica by the Experimental Aircraft Association.

Hyde wasn't disappointed by the aborted flights, noting that the plane made three successful test flights in the month before the festival.

Dot Hornsby also was not disappointed, either. The retired teacher flew her own Cessna to the festival from Midland, Mich., on a trip she'd been planning for four years.

"It would've been the icing on the cake. But we got to eat the cake," Hornsby said.

[CaptinCrunch]

Well we knew how the story ended anyway........