Modern-day aviators failed on Wednesday to duplicate the pioneering flight of the Wright brothers a century ago as a replica of their primitive 1903 flying machine flopped into the mud in the birthplace of powered human flight.
On a rain-soaked field in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, where the bicycle mechanics from Ohio achieved the age-old dream on Dec. 17, 1903, an exact copy of the wood-and-cloth Wright Flyer trundled down a wooden rail but failed to generate the speed and lift it needed to fly in an unreliable breeze.
On another attempt hours later, the engine was cranked but the wind died and the aircraft did not try a takeoff.
The two attempts, part of a celebration of the first century of flight that lured astronaut Neil Armstrong and a host of luminaries to North Carolina's Outer Banks, came hours after US President George W. Bush lauded Orville and Wilbur Wright's achievement as a triumph of American ingenuity.
"The Wright brothers' invention belongs to the world but the Wright brothers belong to America," Bush told a crowd of soggy spectators at the Wright Brothers National Memorial.
Downpours hit Kill Devil Hills early Wednesday and light winds that followed forced organizers of the weeklong event to postpone its highlight, an attempt to re-enact the Wrights' original 12-second, 36m flight in the muddy field where they made history.
The Wrights made four flights that day. The last, by Wilbur, measured 260m and lasted 59 seconds.
The re-enactment was to have been made at 10:35am, the same time Orville lifted off, but was delayed for nearly two hours by light winds. Organizers said the replica needed 16kph to 35kph of wind to fly.
Following a series of unsuccessful attempts to crank the balky engine, the Flyer's twin propellers came to life. Kevin Kochersberger, a 42-year-old flight instructor and engineering professor at the Rochester Institute of Technology, guided the replica across the field.
The machine moved slowly down a wooden track and its nose rose briefly before it dipped and settled into a mud puddle. The flight crew said later that photographs showed the plane was in the air briefly, at an altitude of 15cm for about a second.
Kochersberger said the venture was anything but a failure, noting the replica flew twice successfully in trials.
"We were just a little bit shy on the wind and a little bit shy on the engine power today," he said.
The weeklong festival attracted and thrilled tens of thousands of aviation buffs.
The US military's B-2 Stealth bomber and the Osprey tilt-rotor, short-takeoff-and-landing craft made appearances, along with Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, the first men on the moon; Chuck Yeager, the pilot who first broke the sound barrier; and John Glenn, the former senator and astronaut.
"Here at the Wright Brothers National Memorial, we remember one small machine and we honor the giants who flew it," said Bush, who flew to North Carolina to take part in the festivities but left before the re-enactment was to take place.
Air Force One, with the president on board, flew over the Wright Memorial before heading back to Washington.
The failed re-enactment after a century of giant leaps in aviation highlighted the ingenuity of the brothers, who constructed a primitive 274kg biplane out of spruce, ash and muslin. The Wright Flyer had a 12m wingspan, was powered by a 12-horsepower engine and had a top speed of just 48kph.
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