The Wright Stuff.

About two dozen aviation buffs are building a slightly modernized replica of the Wright Flyer with the aim of getting it off the ground at the centennial of the first flight

NESTLED in the corner of an El Segundo rocket plant, a group of volunteers have been spending most of their Saturday mornings since January quietly recreating the origin of the aviation industry.

About 25 laborers -- most of them members of the local chapter of the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics, an aerospace industry trade group -- are building from scratch a replica of the Wright Flyer. They say it could be the first recreation of the fabled pioneer aircraft ever to fly.

And the group, which is using materials identical to those used by Wilbur and Orville Wright to piece their plane together, hope to make it happen at Kitty Hawk, N.C. during the centennial celebration of the first airplane flight on Dec. 17, 2003.

They are, however, adding slight variations to the schematic design and a more modern engine in hopes of keeping the 650-pound, 20-foot-long, bi-winged vessel in the air longer than the Wright brothers' inaugural 12-second journey.

"It's an effort of love -- our admiration for the Wright brothers and everything they accomplished," said Jack Cherne, project manager. "(The Wright Flyer) is one of the three most important inventions of the 20th century. In the process of recreating this airplane, we've learned about the genius of the Wright brothers. We're translating everything we have learned into materials for future engineers."

The actual Wright Flyer, which Cherne says shaped the past century as much as nuclear power and the transistor did, is on display at the Smithsonian Institution's National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C.

The AIAA's replica taking shape in El Segundo is scheduled to be complete in July 2002. It is being assembled in three detachable sections -- wings, front canard and rear rudder -- and will be transported in an 18-wheel moving van and displayed at half a dozen museums and air shows around the country before the Kitty Hawk event. Event organizers will pay for transportation costs.

With an exact replica also under construction in Virginia -- complete with an obsolete engine -- National Park Service officials in North Carolina have already penciled in that plane to takeoff at Kitty Hawk around the Wright brothers' original 10:30 a.m. flight time.

But unlike that project, the plane being built in El Segundo will definitely fly, say the AIAA members. And they are pressing North Carolina officials to place them on the agenda for the day's celebration.

Looming adventure

Meanwhile, 11 of the 14 AIAA members holding pilot licenses plan to test their creation at Edwards Air Force Base in the summer of 2002. They will lay down on the lower wing, strapped in, to fully experience the flight of the Wrights, who did not construct the first plane with a seat until 1908, five years after the inaugural flight.

"Understanding what the Wright brothers achieved is worthy of note," said C.N. "Bud" Chamberlain, a 78-year-old retired Air Force officer who flew 23 missions on a B-24 bomber during World War II and who will get a chance to fly the replica. "These were two simple bicycle mechanics. They were self-taught scientists."

The group amassed the $20,000 needed to purchase materials through donations from other AIAA members, as well as from several aerospace companies operating in the Los Angeles area.

Microcosm Inc., which manufactures medium-sized rockets, is loaning the volunteers use of the 2,000 square feet of space where the right Flyer replica is being built.

"We thought it was a worthy project," said Microcosm CEO James Wertz. "And it is fascinating to watch them put it together, as well as the contrast between building a rocket going to orbit in the same room that they are recreating the very first heavier-than-air plane."

Because the Wright brothers worked from designs in their heads, the AIAA group obtained copies of the blueprints later drawn from the completed aircraft by the National Air and Space Museum and the British Museum in London.

Per order of the brothers, the British Museum displayed the Wright Flyer for decades and only turned it over to the Smithsonian in 1948, after the agency, for the firs time, publicly acknowledged that the brothers were the first to fly, said Cherne. The Smithsonian had previously claimed that one of its own high-ranking officials, aviator Samuel Langley, was the first to fly.

Attention to detail

Using the plans as a guide, the group purchased spruce wood for the plane's ribs and spars, muslin to serve as the wing covers and music wire to help hold all the parts together.

When volunteers discovered that the Diamond Chain Co. of Indianapolis had built the heavy-duty bike chain to motor-drive the Wright Flyer's original propellers, they arranged to have Diamond Chain custom-make the exact same part, after the company found its old tools in a storage area.

The planes now under construction in El Segundo and Virginia are not the first replicas of the Wright Flyer ever made.

A group of aerospace companies commissioned the construction of a replica without flying capabilities in 1953 to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the inaugural flight. It was later donated to the AIAA, which had displayed it in its Hollywood regional headquarters until 1970, when the agency sold the building and lent the plane to the San Diego Aerospace Museum.

But a 1978 fire burned the building to the ground and the plane along with it.

Using the insurance payment, the volunteers in 1979 began to work on another replica, which took them 20 years to complete.

The group subjected that replica to a series of aerodynamic tests, including taking it to NASA wind tunnels in Palo Alto, to pinpoint the design flaws that resulted in the Wright brothers only being able to keep their plane in the air for between 12 and 59 seconds -- despite constant, stiff winds -- during the four flights that day in 1903.

"Their airplane was extremely unstable," said Cherne, a semi-retired TRW Inc. engineer who was in charge of the mechanic design of the Lunar Module Descent engines on the Apollo 11-17 missions. "That's why no one since 1903 has been able to fly a replica of the Wright brothers' airplane. With that data, we are making some minor changes (to the replica now being built in El Segundo) to make it safe to fly. It will not be visible to anyone but us. We wanted to be safe rather than sorry."

Plans call for slightly reconfigured wings, a wider canard and installation of a more modern motor -- a derivative of a Volkswagen engine-- with a throttle instead of the Wright brothers' version with an on-off switch.

The earlier replica on which the aerodynamic tests were performed has since been donated to the Federal Aviation Administration, which has it on display at its regional headquarters in Hawthorne.