Huffman Prairie, also known as Huffman Prairie Flying Field or Huffman Field is part of

Ohio Ohio ( ) is a U.S. state, state in the Midwestern United States, Midwestern region of the United States. It borders Lake Erie to the north, Pennsylvania to the east, West Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Indiana to the ...

Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park is a United States National Historical Park in Dayton, Ohio that commemorates three important historical figures— Wilbur Wright, Orville Wright, and poet Paul Laurence Dunbar—and ...

. The 84-acre (34-hectare) patch of rough pasture, near

Fairborn Fairborn is a city in Greene County, Ohio, United States. The population was 34,620 at the 2020 census. It is a suburb of Dayton, Ohio, Dayton and part of the Dayton metropolitan area. The city is home to Wright State University, which serves nea ...

, northeast of

Dayton Dayton () is a city in Montgomery County, Ohio, United States, and its county seat. It is the List of cities in Ohio, sixth-most populous city in Ohio, with a population of 137,644 at the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. The Dayton metro ...

, is the place where the

Wright brothers The Wright brothers, Orville Wright (August 19, 1871 – January 30, 1948) and Wilbur Wright (April 16, 1867 – May 30, 1912), were American aviation List of aviation pioneers, pioneers generally credited with inventing, building, and flyin ...

( Wilbur and Orville) undertook the task of creating a dependable, fully controllable airplane and training themselves to be

pilot An aircraft pilot or aviator is a person who controls the flight of an aircraft by operating its Aircraft flight control system, directional flight controls. Some other aircrew, aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are al ...

s. Many early

aircraft records This article gives yearly aviation records under 5 headings: airspeed, range, ceiling, gross take-off weight, and engine power Engine power is the power that an engine can develop. It can be expressed in power units, most commonly kilowatt, met ...

were set by the Wrights at the Huffman Prairie.

History

The Wrights began using Huffman Prairie in 1904 with the permission of the field's owner, Dayton banker Torrence Huffman. It was located near an

interurban The interurban (or radial railway in Canada) is a type of electric railway, with tram-like electric self-propelled railcars which run within and between cities or towns. The term "interurban" is usually used in North America, with other terms u ...

trolley stop called Simms Station, outside the brothers' hometown of Dayton. In April, they started testing their

Wright Flyer II The ''Wright Flyer II'' was the second powered aircraft built by Wilbur and Orville Wright. During 1904 they used it to make a total of 105 flights, ultimately achieving flights lasting five minutes and also making full circles, which was acc ...

. The Wrights made about 150 flights at the field in 1904–1905, leading to development of the 1905

Wright Flyer III The ''Wright Flyer III'' is the third powered aircraft by the Wright Brothers, built during the winter of 1904–05. Orville Wright made the first flight with it on June 23, 1905. The ''Wright Flyer III'' had an airframe of spruce construction ...

, which they considered to be the first practical airplane. This aircraft has been restored, and is now displayed at the Carillon Historical Park in Dayton. In 1910, the

Wright Company The Wright Company was the commercial aviation business venture of the Wright brothers, established by them on November 22, 1909, in conjunction with several prominent industrialists from New York and Detroit with the intention of capitalizing on ...

placed its testing operations at Huffman Prairie Flying Field; the Wright Company also operated its Wright Flying School on the site. Through the Flying School, the Wright Company trained more than a hundred pilots, including the aviators for the Wright Exhibition Team and early military aviators, including Henry H. "Hap" Arnold and Thomas DeWitt Milling. The United States Army Signal Corps purchased the field in 1917 and renamed it, along with 2,000 adjacent acres (8 km²), Wilbur Wright Field. In 1948 the area was merged with nearby Patterson Field to become

Wright-Patterson Air Force Base Wright-Patterson Air Force Base (WPAFB) is a United States Air Force base and census-designated place just east of Dayton, Ohio, in Greene County, Ohio, Greene and Montgomery County, Ohio, Montgomery counties. It includes both Wright and Patte ...

Huffman Prairie Flying Field Historic Site

The

National Park Service The National Park Service (NPS) is an List of federal agencies in the United States, agency of the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government, within the US Department of the Interior. The service manages all List ...

currently operates this historic site where visitors may see the place where the Wrights developed the world's first practical airplane as well as replicas of their 1905 hangar and launching catapult. While the historic flying field is mowed short, simulating the grazed pasture used by the Wrights and allowing its use for re-enactment flights, an adjacent area of tall-grass prairie is maintained unmowed, managed instead using late-season controlled burns. A

nature trail An educational trail (or sometimes educational path), nature trail or nature walk is a specially developed hiking trail or footpath that runs through the countryside, along which there are marked stations or stops next to points of natural scienc ...

winds among the prairie's tall grasses, diverse

wildflower A wildflower (or wild flower) is a flower that grows in the wild, rather than being intentionally seeded or planted. The term implies that the plant is neither a hybrid nor a selected cultivar that is any different from the native plant, eve ...

s, and occasional

shrub A shrub or bush is a small to medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees by their multiple ...

s. The Huffman Prairie area is located within the Air Force Base, with a separate entrance and fencing between it and an adjacent

runway In aviation, a runway is an elongated, rectangular surface designed for the landing and takeoff of an aircraft. Runways may be a human-made surface (often asphalt concrete, asphalt, concrete, or a mixture of both) or a natural surface (sod, ...

and other modern base facilities. The associated Huffman Prairie Flying Field Interpretive Center is located about 2 miles (3.2 km) from the flying field on ''Wright Brother Hill'', near the ''Wright Brothers Memorial'', overlooking Huffman Prairie and other parts of the Air Force Base. This

facility addresses the specific problems Orville and Wilbur Wright encountered while they were perfecting their flying machine, their first demonstration flights in the United States and in Europe, their exhibition team, and their manufacturing facility in Dayton, Ohio. The center contains a Wright Flyer flight simulator visitors can try out, highlights the continuing legacy of Orville and Wilbur Wright as embodied in the development of Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, and overviews the continuing aeronautical research at this Air Force facility. Huffman Prairie Flying Field was designated as a

National Historic Landmark A National Historic Landmark (NHL) is a National Register of Historic Places property types, building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the Federal government of the United States, United States government f ...

in 1990, is one element of the

and was added to the U.S.

World Heritage World Heritage Sites are landmarks and areas with legal protection under an treaty, international treaty administered by UNESCO for having cultural, historical, or scientific significance. The sites are judged to contain "cultural and natural ...

Tentative List as part of the Dayton Aviation Sites listing in 2008. and UNESCO page for tentative designation for components of the Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park
/ref> In 1986, of the natural portion of the Huffman Prairie was designated as an Ohio Natural Area. It is a component of the

National Aviation Heritage Area The National Aviation Heritage Area is a federally designated National Heritage Area consolidating more than fifteen aviation-related sites in the Dayton, Ohio area into a cooperative marketing and administrative framework. The National Heritage Ar ...

References

External links

National Park Service: Huffman Prairie Flying Field Interpretive Center
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National Park Service: Huffman Prairie History2008 U.S. World Heritage Tentative List
* {{authority control Aerospace museums in Ohio National Historic Landmarks in Ohio Museums in Greene County, Ohio National Register of Historic Places in Greene County, Ohio Fairborn, Ohio Wright brothers Protected areas of Greene County, Ohio Wright-Patterson Air Force Base History of Dayton, Ohio Biographical museums in Ohio Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park Airports established in 1904 Airports on the National Register of Historic Places Transportation buildings and structures on the National Register of Historic Places in Ohio