It’s been three years since I moved to Dayton from the Chicago area. The airplane geek that I am, I’d see airplanes wherever I was often looking up at inopportune times for those around me.
Such as running; hearing an airplane engine that sounded different from those expected in the area was all it would take to look up while running. Thank you to buddies who kept me from falling or tripping over something while I plane spotted in everyday life.
The first place people got to plane spot like that, was Huffman Prairie. The cow pasture that the Wright Brothers brokered the use of outside of Dayton to continue work on flight after the first flight was made in Kitty Hawk, NC is open to the public and an unassuming place overall.
Huffman Prairie
A short walk from a stop on the light rail line running from Dayton to Springfield, the prairie became the location of improvement for the Wright Flyer as it flew a course marked with flags around the perimeter of the field.
Distance and time increased slowly but surely with flights launched from the catapult launching into the wind.
Eyewitness reports from the time indicate passengers on the rail line witnessed the Wright brothers’ progress even if newspapers of the time did not always believe them.
After the Wright flyer had become more viable, the Wright brothers ran a flight school from Huffman Prairie which taught notables like Hap Arnold and Marjorie and ? Stinson how to fly.
The location of the flight school is marked with an outline on the ground a short walk from the interurban stop on the way to the hangar and catapult in the middle of the field.
At the time it looked like the memorial to the Wright brothers would be built close to the site, but the flood of 1913 And Wilbur’s untimely passing in 1912 pushed back the building of a memorial until 1940.
When I first encountered Huffman Prairie, it was on the course of the Air Force Marathon. At that time, it wove around the runway of Wright Patterson Air Force Base before the shade of the trees welcomed runners trudging through the high mileage of the race.
The idea of shade of trees after the hot sun was a welcome change, seeing the sign for the trolley and the prairie gave me goosebumps thinking of the history that took place there.
As the marathon course ran by the field, it was not until recently I was able to appreciate more fully the location and its significance.
The restorer accompanied me to pick up my packet for the 5K as part of the 2023 Air Force Marathon races. As both the Wright Memorial and Huffman Prairie are close by, we made a point of spending time there.
As the restorer has lived in the Dayton area for most of his life, he has a different perspective than I do as we are filling in my mental map of the area.
With the marathon being held the next day, barricades and flags were being staged along the route.
The drive to Huffman Prairie is along roads marked with information signs on a public area of Wright Patterson Air Force Base.
White flags marking the course of the Wright Flyer are seen several turns before arriving.
The location allows driving up to the catapult and hangar reconstructed in the middle of the field or parking close to the replica of the trolley stop and walking the short distance.
Huffman Prairie is also accessible by bike trails in the area.
The restorer and I parked close to the recreated Simms Station interurban stop and walked onto the field.
Our visit did not allow for enough time to walk between the flags at the site, a sign suggested it would take about 30 minutes to trace the path of the Wright flyer. We will return and do so on another day – hopefully with some of our airplane family in tow.
While the site primarily highlights the advances of the Wright flyer that took place there, it also talks about its time as a flight school before World War I.
General Henry “Hap” Arnold, along with Marjorie Stinson was one of the first female pilots and went on to teach others how to fly along with operating an airport of their own outside of San Antonio, TX, and her brother Eddie Stinson who later built the Stinson aircraft Company and learned how to fly at Huffman Prairie.
The restorer quipped his Cub and aircraft of similar size and horsepower could operate easily in the confines of the prairie as it is abutted by trees and powerlines on its sides. Airplanes like Sis, my Bonanza, would be too big and fast to operate there.
The Great Flood of 1913 had a good portion of Dayton underwater and rebuilding the area took precedence. Over 300 were killed in the flood with thousands more displaced.
Wilbur had passed away the year before and Orville along with their father and sister still lived on Hawthorn which was part of the area flooded. The 1903 Wright Flyer and photographic evidence of the first flight were underwater but not destroyed.
Plans for a memorial to the Wright Brothers in the vicinity of Huffman Prairie were modified as dams and infrastructure ensuring no further floods of that magnitude would happen were created.
The Wright Memorial
When the Wright Memorial was finally built in 1940 nearly thirty years had passed. Orville, along with other dignitaries, was present at the unveiling on his, birthday August 19, 1940.
The location of the memorial sits on a bluff overlooking Huffman Dam, one of the five dams built for flood control in the foreground with the flags marking Huffman Prairie intermixed with trees of the background before the massive runway of Wright Patterson Air Force Base in the distance.
Plane spotting from the Memorial is limited to aircraft taking off or landing from the runway at Wright Patterson. The Museum of the US Air Force is located on the other side of a ridge and holds the remains of Wright Field where test pilots like Chuck Yeager and Bob Hoover operated during and in the years after WWII.
Smaller in scale but like the First Flight memorial at Kitty Hawk, NC, the memorial is almost unassuming in relation to their feat.
The US Park Service has an information center at the memorial, it is informative and worth visiting.
The location of the Wright brother’s memorial is also adjacent to the Air Force Marathon course. The gate leading up to the site was sitting near an aid station on this year’s course.
As the restorer has read more books on aviation history and the Wright brothers in particular than I have it was refreshing to have more of the story filled in on multiple fronts.
While the plaques around the pillar are informative about the site and history of the area, the restorer’s references to books he had read about the Wright brothers such as The Bishop’s Boys and The Wright Brothers allowed for more context.
Like Huffman Prairie, the Wright Memorial is close to the bike path and accessible by car. The area around the memorial is hillier than Huffman Prairie, if using the path more energy will be expelled than visiting the prairie.
Both locations are a part of the Aviation Trail – a free self-guided tour of aviation history in the Dayton area.