In September 2001, an 18-year dream of a retired model maker from Wright State University (WSU) was fullfilled with the completion of an exact replica of the Wright brothers 1903 flyer that flew at Kitty Hawk. The final challenge would be getting it installed in its rightful home: the University’s Paul Laurence Dunbar Library, which also houses the world’s foremost collection of Wright brothers archives and memorabilia.

As it swayed and teetered precariously, the flyer seemed to fight its wire moorings and the workers struggling to raise it. Indeed, it would take several tries before the plane—which weighs 550 pounds and has a 40-foot wingspan—would be in place, hanging securely under the renovated skylight in the library’s atrium.

“This plane wasn’t met to hang--this plane wants to fly,” says Josephine Elliott Lucas, one of the plane’s builders.

Indeed, if you put a real motor on her, she would fly, says 88-year old Howard DuFour. For two years, he and two other WSU retirees—James Arehart, also from WSU’s model shop, and Rubin Battino, professor emeritus of chemistry--led the team of volunteers, representing a gamut of occupations, from housewives, engineers, and teachers to machinists, seamtresses, and upholsterers. Most were over the age of 70.

Starting in December 1999, the team, worked on average three days a week and put in over 4,200 hours. Working from drawings of the original flyer at the National Air Space and Museum, they attained measurements and angles within a 10,000th inch tolerance.

“We had to go back to 1903,” says DuFour. “To think in simple terms. This plane is actually a box kite with a motor. It’s all based on geometry. It’s simplicity is its genius.”

When possible the workers used the same materials and building techniques as the Wrights. For example, when they realized they needed a type of sinew used to anchor the fabric to the rib ends, volunteer Jack Ohmart remembered he had the exact item in his basement: an unused spool of Barbour’s Pure Flax Sinew that he had purchased in the 1930s.

However, some times other materials had to be substituted. For instance, the original flyer was built of spruce, which is no longer available in the quantities needed. DuFour chose basswood for its straight grain and resistance to warping.

The final work involved attaching the wings and completing the hand stitching on the more than 300 yards of muslin used in the plane’s construction. “This has been an experience of a lifetime,”

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