Who We Are

The Wright Flyer Project is a purely volunteer, non-profit organization. We formed under the Los Angeles Section of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics (AIAA) to replace a 1953 exact replica built by our prior society for the 50th anniversary of flight that was destroyed in the 1978 San Diego Air & Space Museum fire. We first built an exact replica, slightly modified for tests in the NASA Ames 40x80 foot wind tunnel. (It is currently displayed at the March Field Museum.) We took that data and modern analysis to build and test this safer flyer. The group shown above conducted medium speed taxi tests in 2012, after which key members “aged out”. We have survived for more than forty years on a small insurance settlement and the generocity of many aeronautical companies, their workers, and others. In 2024, an airport donor began converting the Flyer from a test program directly to a museum display.

It is unusual to the point of being amazing that this airplane has been built with donated labor by a group of a few dozen volunteers who individually have long and impressive association with the aerospace industry. It is probably more amazing that this group has endured for forty years and is committed to many more. This is certainly a tribute to our fascination for the Wright Brothers. They advanced the 1899 “state of the art” by developing fundamental aeronautical engineering testing, project development, wind-tunnel tests, fabrication, control and propeller theories, to create a milestone for humankind. This provided the first wings for man and the modern world.

A rough calculation of the total professional experience of the group yielded 600 years. Fortunately, this assemblage of backgrounds and personalities has been sufficiently congenial, that our work periods are also very pleasant social events.

Please take the time to peruse some of the other sections of our legacy site or read about the origins of the AIAA Wright Flyer Project, and drop us a line if you have comments.