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Ohio inventions and firsts · First · 1910

Wright Company flying school at Huffman Prairie

In 1910 the Wright Company opened a flight school and test operation at Huffman Prairie that trained over a hundred pilots, including Hap Arnold.

At a glance

Year
1910
By
Wilbur Wright, Orville Wright
Company
Wright Company
Place
Huffman Prairie, near Fairborn, Greene County ZIP 45431 · Greene County

The story

As airplanes became a business, someone had to teach people to fly them. In 1910 the Wright Company opened a flying school and test operation on Huffman Prairie near Dayton, the same field where the brothers had perfected their airplane in 1904 and 1905.

The school trained over 100 pilots. Two of the students, Henry H. Arnold, known as Hap, and Thomas DeWitt Milling, later became military aviators; Arnold rose to lead the U.S. Army Air Forces in World War II.

The field's future was military. The U.S. Army Signal Corps acquired it in 1917 and renamed it Wilbur Wright Field, and in 1948 it merged with Patterson Field to form Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.

Today the National Park Service runs the site as part of Dayton Aviation Heritage National Historical Park, with replicas of the 1905 hangar and catapult, and an interpretive center about two miles away on Wright Brother Hill.

Timeline

  • 1904: The Wrights begin flying at Huffman Prairie. (near Fairborn, OH) source
  • 1910: The Wright Company opens its testing operation and flying school at the field. (near Fairborn, OH) source
  • 1917: The Army Signal Corps acquires the field and names it Wilbur Wright Field. (near Fairborn, OH) source
  • 1948: The field merges with Patterson Field to form Wright-Patterson Air Force Base. (near Fairborn, OH) source

What it changed

  • Over 100 pilots trained, including future military leaders.
  • The land is now part of a national historical park.

Why it matters

Early U.S. civilian flight training.

Places in Ohio to see

Further reading

Sources

Confidence. Medium: the main facts were confirmed, but some details (often an address or ZIP code) were not.