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Cliff,
Oh,thank you, thank you for asking.
We in Ohio have taken our geniouses for granted for a long time.
Even tho' the State of North Carolina has declared itself as "First in Flight" on automobile license plates for at least 50 years we Ohioans knew where powered flight came from but made no protest.
The actual case is this. All the Wright brother's developement work and construction was done in Dayton ,Ohio. What Ohio couldn't supply was a consistant supply of high wind in a place that was hell-and-gone fom prying eyes. North Carolina had that in spades. North Carolina was so pre-industrial that the Wrights had to ship their broken sub-assemblies back to Ohio to get them repaired. It was a multi-day trip just to get their stuff into a train car.
When the issue of coins featuring each US state came up the N. Carolinians persisted in trying to suck up Ohio glory even tho' history shows plainly that not one N.C. braincell contribted to the first flight. Unfortunately the "Tarheels" or Bollweevels" or whatever they call themselves got to show the first flight on their benighted quarter.
Once the Wrights had gotten off the ground they left the sand ,the wind, the bugs and the bad diet of N.C. forever.
Wright Fliers were perfected at Hoffman Prairie (now Wright Patterson AF Base) outside of Dayton. Because there was an interurban train that crossed Hoffman Prairie numerous times each day, the Wrights schedualed their test flights so that the train riders wouldn't get a look at their contraption.
Incidentally, many decades ago the US Patent Office combed their records for the place that produced the most patents. No surprise there. It was Dayton, Ohio.
Glad to get that out of my spleen.
Charlie
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