DALE HUFFMAN
COMMENTARY
More than a hundred years ago, while testing a Wright Aeroboat over the Great Miami River in West Carrollton, pilot Orville Wright narrowly escaped drowning when his aeroboat fell into the river from an altitude of 30 feet after a wing broke.
The Wright Brothers Aeroplane Company tested close to 100 different versions of seaplanes in and out of the river in the area of West Carrollton and Moraine in the early 1900s.
But the flight on Aug. 20, 1914, was the last flight for Orville in an Aeroboat.
For a number of years, a group of Dayton historians has quietly been working on a project to develop a new Wright Brothers Museum and to recreate a full-size Model “G” Aeroboat along the Great Miami River in the area where Wright went down.
Now known officially as the Wright Seaplane Base Inc., the organization hopes to build museum buildings on the bend of the Great Miami to house the Aeroboat seaplane when it is completed.
According to Donald Ferguson, retired commander of the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3438 in West Carrollton and secretary of the Wright Seaplane Base, the organization hopes to be listed as one of the official Aviation Trails sites for visitors interested in the Wright brothers and the birth of powered flight.
“We have hopes that this site, not far from the Moraine Airpark at 3700 Clearview Ave. in Moraine, which sits along the riverbank, will be established by the FAA as a certified seaplane base with proper facilities to service seaplanes,” Ferguson said.
The new organization has begun a series of fundraising events and hopes to raise at least $6,000 for the first phase of the project.
“The Ohio Historical Society has approved placing the historical marker right at the bend of the river in West Carrollton near the site of the plane crash in 1914,” Ferguson said.
These words, taken from the log Orville Wright filed that day, will be quoted on the marker: “The ‘Aeroboat’ was 28 feet long, had a wingspan of 38 feet and weighed 1,250 pounds. It was powered by a 60-foot horse power engine and could attain a maximum speed of 60 mph. Orville, accompanied by student pilot Lt. Kenneth Whiting, of the U.S. Navy, narrowly escaped drowning when the Aeroboat fell into the Miami River from an altitude of 30 feet when a wing broke. Orville’s last flight in the Aeroboat was that day.”
Ferguson said he has spent “many a day” reading aviation history books during the past few years, and is pleased to be involved in preparing to identify and establish the place in history that the Great Miami River, and the cities of West Carrollton and Moraine have played.
“The Wright brothers took to the air on Dec. 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, N.C. They soon became experts at guiding their invention through the patent process and producing a controllable flying machine that could be sold to the military and to the public in general.”
Ferguson added, “After a grand tour in foreign countries, showing the world they could fly, they were welcomed back home to Dayton. On Thursday, June 17, 1909, factory whistles blew and cannons were fired, and schoolchildren were let out of classes to help participate in the welcome home celebration.”
Wilbur Wright died in 1912 and Orville carried on the company business until his death in January 1948.
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