One Hundred Years of Altitude (Cont.)

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Outside Magazine June 2002

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One Hundred Years of Altitude (Cont.)


	Taylor and Young at the outer banks (Chris Buck)

OF THE FOUR OTHER TEAMS working on the '03, only one will try to create a replica with the same specs as the original. That group—The Wright Experience, based in Warrenton, Virginia—is led by Ken Hyde, 63, a retired American Airlines captain with 35,000 hours of flight time who is also Young's former partner.

In 1992, Hyde and Young launched The Wright Experience with an eye toward re-creating the Wrights' gliders and eventually the '03 Flyer. The group was later hired by the 170,000-member Experimental Aircraft Association, a group of flying enthusiasts based in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, after the EAA won a prestigious $1.5 million contract with the National Park Service to stage the flight of an '03 replica on the 100th anniversary. Wright Experience designers (led by Young) built the 1900 and 1901 gliders that Young flew, both of which now hang in the Virginia Museum of Aviation in Richmond.

After NASA wind-tunnel tests were done on the '03 last year, the data were plugged into flight simulator. Only one of three air force test pilots could land the plane without crashing.

But after The Wright Experience won the '03 job, Hyde's shop grew, he hired a small army of craftsmen, and Young walked. His basic gripe: He didn't like it that a project dedicated to the Wrights' garage-workshop spirit was starting to look like a Cessna factory. "Hyde wanted all these other people to make everything," growls Young, "but with too many people involved and too much money you lose the experiential side of things. I just left and gave him everything. He'll never make that plane fly."

Hyde, who hopes to be in the air by this December, prefers not to revisit old feuds. "I don't want to comment," he says. "I can make this plane fly. We have different goals, is all I'll say."

The remaining outfits are scattered around the country. The Wright Brothers Aeroplane Company, founded by Nick Engler, a 52-year-old craftsman and author, is an educational enterprise based in Dayton. Engler plans to have platoons of schoolchildren produce many of the parts for the Flyer, which he'll put in the air at the annual Dayton International Airshow in July 2003. The Los Angeles Chapter of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, a prestigious group of aerospace engineers, intends to build a working '03 Flyer in time to fly it in July 2003. And Wright Redux, led by a Washington, D.C.Ðbased publicist and aviation buff named Tom Norton, 54, recently signed a contract with National Geographic to film a replica Flyer lifting off from the lawn of Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry in December 2003.

Though each of the teams claims it will be flying an accurate '03, none is willing to court the same level of risk as Young. Hyde will use tougher glue and stronger bronze alloy for the engine's connecting rods when putting his Flyer together. Engler's plane will be fitted with a more reliable Suzuki engine; Norton's, with a faster Briggs & Stratton model. And the aeronautical engineers building the AIAA Flyer are reengineering whatever suits them. "To the average person, our plane will be indistinguishable from what the Wrights flew," says Fred Culick, 68, a professor of aeronautics and mechanical engineering at the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena and the head pilot for the group. "But we're trying to build a full-scale replica that can be flown safely, so we'll have a slightly different airfoil and a more powerful engine."

Culick is well aware of the '03 Flyer's sketchy nature. He and his company first started building a nonflying version of the plane 20 years ago. After a battery of NASA wind-tunnel tests last year, Culick plugged his data into a flight simulator at the Air Force Test Pilot's School at Edwards Air Force Base near Los Angeles. Only one of three Air Force test pilots could land the plane without crashing. "It was a very bad airplane," says Culick. "Seriously unstable. Flying the thing is like trying to balance two yardsticks on the end of a finger on each hand."

Despite these legitimate safety concerns, Young dismisses the competition. He calls Hyde a huckster who's "in it for all the wrong reasons." Norton's woodworker is "terrible." Engler he snubs with a wave of his hand. The AIAA project is just a bunch of engineers who "can't leave the original design alone."

No one is courting a pissing match, but it's clear that Young's commitment to authenticity—coupled with his vast knowledge of the Wright Brothers—has made him difficult to work with.

"The guy's obsessed," says Culick. "Look, Rick is the world's expert on the Wrights," adds Norton, "but he doesn't do well in large organizations. He defines the playing field. And if he can't, he won't play."

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