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

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

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 ...

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

Dayton Dayton () is the sixth-largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Montgomery County. A small part of the city extends into Greene County. The 2020 U.S. census estimate put the city population at 137,644, while Greater Da ...

, is the place where the Wright brothers ( Wilbur and Orville) undertook the difficult and sometimes dangerous 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 directional flight controls. Some other aircrew members, such as navigators or flight engineers, are also considered aviators, because they a ...

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 put out. It can be expressed in power units, most commonly kilowatt, pf ...

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 Europe and Canada) is a type of electric railway, with streetcar-like electric self-propelled rail cars which run within and between cities or towns. They were very prevalent in North America between 1900 a ...

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 accompl ...

. 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 was 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 Flyer III had an airframe of spruce construction with a wing ...

, which they considered to be the first practical airplane. This aircraft has been restored, and is now displayed at the

Carillon Historical Park Carillon Historical Park is a 65-acre (26.3 ha) park and museum in Dayton, Ohio, which contains historic buildings and exhibits concerning the history of technology and the history of Dayton and its residents from 1796 to the present. As a part of ...

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 o ...

placed its testing operations at Huffman Prairie Flying Field; the Wright Company also operated its

Wright Flying School The Wright Flying School, also known as the Wright School of Aviation, was operated by the Wright Company from 1910 to 1916 and trained 119 individuals to fly Wright airplanes. History Orville Wright began training students on March 19, 1910 in M ...

on the site. Through the Flying School, the Wright Company trained more than a hundred pilots, including the aviators for the

Wright Exhibition Team The Wright Exhibition Team was a group of early aviators trained by the Wright brothers at Wright Flying School in Montgomery, Alabama in March 1910. History The group was formed in 1910 at the suggestion of balloonist Augustus Roy Knabenshue. ...

and early military aviators, including Henry H. "Hap" Arnold and

Thomas DeWitt Milling Thomas DeWitt Milling (July 31, 1887 – November 26, 1960) was a pioneer of military aviation and a brigadier general in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He was the first rated pilot in the history of the United States Air Force. He received his flig ...

. 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 agency of the United States federal government within the U.S. Department of the Interior that manages all national parks, most national monuments, and other natural, historical, and recreational propertie ...

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 The tallgrass prairie is an ecosystem native to central North America. Historically, natural and anthropogenic fire, as well as grazing by large mammals (primarily bison) provided periodic disturbances to these ecosystems, limiting the encroac ...

is maintained unmowed, managed instead using late-season

controlled burns A controlled or prescribed burn, also known as hazard reduction burning, backfire, swailing, or a burn-off, is a fire set intentionally for purposes of forest management, farming, prairie restoration or greenhouse gas abatement. A cont ...

. 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, techno ...

winds among the prairie's tall grasses, diverse

wildflower A wildflower (or wild flower) is a flower that grows in the wild, meaning it was not intentionally seeded or planted. The term implies that the plant probably is neither a hybrid nor a selected cultivar that is in any way different from the w ...

s, and occasional

shrub A shrub (often also called a 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 ...

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

runway According to the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO), a runway is a "defined rectangular area on a land aerodrome prepared for the landing and takeoff of aircraft". Runways may be a man-made surface (often asphalt concrete, as ...

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 near the Wright Memorial, on a hilltop 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 building, district, object, site, or structure that is officially recognized by the United States government for its outstanding historical significance. Only some 2,500 (~3%) of over 90,000 places listed ...

in 1990, is one element of the

and was added to the U.S.

World Heritage A World Heritage Site is a landmark or area with legal protection by an international convention administered by the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). World Heritage Sites are designated by UNESCO for h ...

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