link to tour) Yesterday, I went on a day long tour of early aviation artifacts and sites located in the Washington DC area organized by Smithsonian Associates





The tour was lead by Paul Glenshaw . Paul was acknowledged for his help by David McCullough in his book :" The Wright Brothers ", a book I read in preparation of this tour.





We first visited the National Air and Space Museum to view the early Wright gliders, and of course,the 1903 Wright Flyer.









The next visit was the Smithsonian Castle. The garden there was the site of Professor Langley's construction of the Aerodrome.

'

Afterwards we visited Haines Point , site of the unsuccessful attempt to fly the powered Aerodrome by pilot Charles Manly.





Next was the Air Force Memorial. And then Fort Meyer, where in 1908 Orville Wright demonstrated the Wright airplane for the U.S. Army. On one test flight, the plane crashed, injuring Orville, and killing Lt. Thomas Selfridge , making Selfridge the first airplane fatality.





In 1909 Orville successfully demonstrated the airplane's usefulness to the US Army at Fort Meyer. As part of the contract to sell a plane to the Army, the Wrights had to train two pilots. That training was done at College Park. After the Wright's left, training continued at the nascent College Park Airport, the oldest airport in the world.









I chose some photographs from the many I took, and captioned and shared them



Note: click the first photo, and then Info button

to see captions and a map where the photo was taken. Hover your mouse over the right edge of the photo for an arrow to the next photo.



