By: Nicholas Mathes & Nicholas Toney
Historical preservation refers to the practice of safeguarding, maintaining, and protecting buildings, objects, landscapes, and other artifacts of historical significance. This practice has a long and storied past but its goals have always been the same:to connect us to our shared past and to protect aviation heritage for generations to come.
Since its establishment, the Florida Air Museum has been the generous recipient of numerous historical artifacts. For over 30 years, passionate aviators and aviation enthusiasts have trusted us with the preservation of their most important material pieces of history. We strive to care for these items with integrity and are committed to fulfilling our role as custodians of aviation history. This month we want to share with our readers one of the most prized and valuable pieces in our collection.
The date was April 26, 1944. A C-69 Constellation was roaring in the skies above Wright Field in Dayton, Ohio. This aircraft had just broken a transcontinental speed record with its pilots Howard Hughes and Trans World Airlines President Jack Fyre. It was on its way home to California from Washington D.C.; however, this aircraft had planned to stop at Wright Field for an immensely significant 50 minutes.
The Constellation was slated to pick up Orville Wright. During the flight, Orville made some remarks that live on today. Specifically, he stated “I always said airplanes would fly themselves if you left them alone.” He also made the remark that the Constellation’s distance was larger than the distance of the first flight. Howard Hughes and Jack Fyre could not have known that this would be the last time that Orville Wright would fly, thus making the journey truly historic.
After Orville’s death in 1948, Howard Hughes was given a small, yet highly significant gift:a small piece of cloth, measuring about 1.5 inches by 1 inch, given to Hughes in accordance with Wright’s wishes. This small piece of fabric was a part of the original 1903 Wright Flyer, the very same one flown at Kitty Hawk, N.C. on that fateful day in December.
