Put yourself at helm of the Wright Flyer

Before Orville and Wilbur Wright completed their first powered flight nearly a century ago, people liked to say that if man were meant to fly, God would have given him wings.

Or software, as it turns out.


		Meryl Schenker / P-I
	Bob Forsyth of Bellevue, a former test pilot and Army aviator, uses the Microsoft Flyer simulator at the Museum of Flight yesterday to relive the Wright brothers' first successful takeoffs.

A touring Wright brothers exhibit to open tomorrow at the Museum of Flight in Seattle includes a set of specially designed machines that run in conjunction with Microsoft Corp.'s Flight Simulator software to give people a better sense of the challenge the brothers faced that historic day.

The challenge was immense, judging from the experience of those who tried the machines yesterday during a preview of the museum's new Birth of Aviation exhibit and the Experimental Aircraft Association's touring Countdown to Kitty Hawk pavilion. The computerized Wright Flyers crashed repeatedly, sometimes after only a few seconds in the air.

"It's a great airplane for flying straight ahead, but it's very sluggish," said Bellevue resident Bob Forsyth, 72, an experienced pilot who tried the simulator several times. "You're flying right on the jagged edge, totally. I don't think they made too many flights on that before they made some significant aerodynamic changes."

"It seems like it just jumps out of your hands as soon as you fly it," said Cody Collins, 15, a junior at Sumner High School and a participant in the museum's apprentice program. He, like many others yesterday, had a friend time him to see how long he could keep the Wright Flyer aloft.

The machines use the same Flight Simulator software that is sold commercially, but instead of controlling the program with a joystick, users lie prone in front of a projection screen on a small platform that replicates the area of the flyer where Orville Wright was harnessed for the first flight. The right hand controls the throttle, the left the elevator, and the hips the wings and rudder.

In the exhibit hall, the simulators are positioned near the Experimental Aircraft Association's full-scale Wright Flyer reproduction, which is scheduled to fly the morning of Dec. 17 at Kitty Hawk, N.C., to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Wright brothers' accomplishment. Seeing that reproduction is important, but the flight simulators give people a better sense of the actual experience, said Bruce Williams, business development manager for Microsoft Flight Simulator.

"They get on this thing, and they understand, wow, it's really hard," Williams said. "It's sluggish, it's unstable. And then they realize that the Wright brothers really accomplished something amazing."

Microsoft approached the association about creating the special Wright Flyer simulators after realizing that the Wright brothers centennial celebration would coincide with the release of the 20th anniversary edition of the company's Flight Simulator software. The association, based in Oshkosh, Wis., created the platforms, and Microsoft made the Flight Simulator software work with them.

The simulators have been a hit at the exhibit's previous stops, in Florida, Michigan, Ohio and Wisconsin, with people waiting in line as long as an hour to try one.

"People love to fly it, and they love to watch other people fly it," said Randal Dietrich, executive director of the group's Countdown to Kitty Hawk exhibit. "They cheer and they sigh and they moan and they clap. You can be on the other side of the exhibit, and you hear cheering and you know somebody just did something miraculous on the Wright Flyer."