Utah's celebration of the first 100 years of powered aircraft flight will start at 8 a.m. Wednesday with a broadcast of live events at Kitty Hawk, N.C., then continue with a flight of a replica Wright Flyer.
The broadcast of the national festivities will be shown in Hangar 3 of the Brigham City Airport, according to Utah State University spokeswoman Trina Paskett. Between 10 a.m. and noon, the USU Wright Flyer airplane will take off from that airport.
The airport is at 1800 N. 2000 West, Brigham City. To reach the site, leave I-15 at the Brigham City 9th North exit. Head east toward Brigham City. Just past a tractor store, turn north onto Airport Road. Follow the road for about a mile through four 90-degree turns. After it heads north, take the first right turn through a gate in the chain-link fence.
The flyer is an updated replica of the biplane Wilbur and Orville Wright used exactly 100 years before in the first sustained, powered airplane flight. The first jump lasted just 12 seconds. But by the end of the day, the brothers were able to fly for nearly a minute.
"It's really a nice opportunity" to fly the replica on the centennial celebration, said Wayne Larsen, the flyer's pilot.
Larsen is a USU alumnus who owns a Brigham City flying service.
Marking the centennial was "really one of the major things this aircraft was built for," he said. "We ought to fly the airplane that day."
The flyer was built with modern materials and has some changes from the original design to make it safer. But it is remarkably like the first powered plane.
Paskett noted the flyer was assembled and tested in more than 10,000 hours of work by USU engineering and aviation technology students and faculty.
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