Orville and Wilber Wright - Dayton, Ohio
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In 2003, the Inventing Flight Committee unveiled a statue of Orville and Wilbur Wright in Deeds Park in Dayton, Ohio. It shows Wilbur explaining "wing warping" to Orville. This was the technique that gave them control of their aircraft.
Waymark Code: WMEKP1
Location: Ohio, United States
Date Posted: 06/10/2012
Views: 13
The 2003 "Inventing Flight: The Centennial Celebration" was a time to observe the centennial of the Wright Brother's first flight in July 2003. As part of the celebration, the committee organizing the events commissioned a statue of Wilbur and Orville Wright. In the statue, Wilbur is explaining his idea of "wing warping" to Orville. This was the key concept that allowed them to control flight in all dimensions.
The statue was dedicated on July 3, 2003, and is located at Deeds Point at the convergence of the Mad and Miami Rivers near downtown Dayton. The artist was Mark Henn. The life-size statue is bronze and was cast at Sun Foundry in Burbank, California. On the base are the dates 1903 - 2003.
The following is from a story about the sculptor from the Los Angeles Times in 2002:
"His detailed sculpture is a tribute to the Wright brothers' ingenuity.
It depicts Wilbur, dressed in a three-piece suit, his hands raised, as he explains to Orville his theory of "wing warping," which occurs when a pilot adjusts the angle of a plane's wing -- much like a rudder -- to control the pitch and roll of an aircraft.
With his bowler hat pushed back on his head, Orville listens intently as he twists the ends of a small cardboard box, simulating how each wing of an aircraft would change position in relation to the wind.
"Twisting the wings was the answer they had been looking for," Henn said. "This was their breakthrough."" source: (
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A stone marker at the front of the statue gives information about the scene:
"By the late 1800s, a handful of experimenters around the world were closing in on the riddle of powered flight. They could fly a plane into the air, but they still couldn't control it - keep it from pitching forward, turning side to side, or rolling. The Wright Brothers solved pitching and turning, but rolling eluded them. One day in the cycle shop in 1899, Wilbur picked up an empty bicycle tube box and absentmindedly twisted either end. In that instant, he saw the solution: warping one wing down while warping the other up would keep the plane from rolling. Four years of study and experimentation lay ahead, but the Wrights were on their way to being the first to fly a heavier-than-air machine."