The Fort Myer Trials, the Wright Military Flyer, and the Summer the U.S. Army Finally Bought an Airplane

On August 2, 1909, the United States Army formally accepted its first airplane, the Wright Military Flyer, entering it on the books as Signal Corps Airplane No. 1. The Army paid $30,000 for it - a $25,000 base price plus a $5,000 speed bonus. That purchase, made at Fort Myer, Virginia, came less than a year after the same aircraft type crashed on the same field, killing a young Army lieutenant and nearly killing Orville Wright.

What Were the Fort Myer Trials?

In 1908, the U.S. Army Signal Corps issued a specification for a flying machine. The aircraft had to carry two men, stay aloft for one hour, and make 40 miles per hour over a measured course. If it passed, the price was $25,000.

The Wright brothers had been flying in near-secrecy since their first powered flight at Kitty Hawk in December 1903. At a cow pasture called Huffman Prairie outside Dayton, Ohio, they taught themselves to bank, turn, and circle while much of the world still doubted powered flight was real. Cautious men, they refused to demonstrate publicly until they had a contract in hand, fearing someone would steal their control system.

The 1908 contract finally gave them a reason to fly in the open. Orville handled the Army demonstrations at Fort Myer while his brother Wilbur flew for crowds in France.

The 1908 Crash That Killed Lt. Thomas Selfridge

Orville dazzled the Army through early September 1908, setting endurance and altitude records on nearly daily flights. Then came September 17, 1908.

That afternoon, Orville took up a passenger: First Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge, a West Point graduate and one of the sharpest aeronautical minds in the Army, who had worked with Alexander Graham Bell’s experimental group. They climbed to about 150 feet and began circling the field.

The Wright machine used pusher propellers - big hand-carved wooden blades nearly nine feet across, spun by bicycle chains. On this flight, one propeller cracked along the grain. As the tip flattened and vibrated, it whipped a guy wire bracing the tail. The wire caught the blade, and the propeller shattered.

The airplane pitched and drove nose-first into the parade ground. Rescuers pulled both men from the wreckage. Orville survived with a broken leg, broken ribs, and hip injuries that pained him for the rest of his life, spending seven weeks in the hospital. Lieutenant Selfridge, struck in the head, never regained consciousness and died that evening.

Thomas Selfridge was 26 years old, and he became the first person to die in the crash of a powered airplane.

Why Selfridge’s Death Still Matters to Pilots

Every propeller inspection in a modern run-up traces back to that Virginia field. The idea that a hairline flaw in a spinning blade can kill you was written in blood on September 17, 1908. When a pilot runs a hand down a prop checking for nicks, or grounds an aircraft over a crack, that habit descends directly from Selfridge’s flight.

The Army named an airfield after him - Selfridge Field in Michigan, still in use today - honoring a man who died before the Army owned a single airplane.

Orville Wright’s Return in 1909

Neither the Wrights nor the Army walked away. There was no lawsuit and no blame; everyone understood they were doing something no one had done before. The contract stayed open.

Orville returned to Dayton to heal, nursed by his sister Katharine. By the summer of 1909, walking again with a limp, he went back to the exact same field where he had watched a man die and nearly died himself. This time Wilbur, finished with the European contracts, stood beside him.

The crowds returned larger than ever. President Taft came out to watch, along with thousands of Washingtonians who packed the trolleys to Fort Myer in the July heat.

The Endurance Test: One Hour Aloft

On July 27, 1909, Orville took up Lieutenant Frank Lahm as passenger and stayed airborne for 1 hour, 12 minutes, and 40 seconds. That cleared the two-man, one-hour endurance requirement with time to spare. Only the speed run remained.

The Speed Run to Alexandria

The Army required 40 mph over a cross-country course. From Fort Myer, the airplane had to fly roughly five miles to a captive balloon anchored over Alexandria, round it, and fly five miles back - ten miles total, over rooftops and trees, with no place to land if the engine faltered.

The contract added an incentive: for every full mile per hour over 40, the Army would pay a bonus of $2,500.

On the evening of July 30, 1909, Orville climbed aboard with Lieutenant Benjamin Foulois as navigator. Foulois held the map and called the landmarks so Orville could keep his hands and eyes on flying. The two sat in the open air on the leading edge of the lower wing, feet dangling, coated in the castor-oil mist thrown back by the four-cylinder engine.

They found the balloon over Alexandria, rounded it, and turned for home with the wind behind them. Officials timing the run over the measured course clocked an average of about 42.5 mph - 2 full miles per hour over the requirement.

How the Army Bought Signal Corps Airplane No. 1

Two miles per hour over 40 earned a bonus of 2 × $2,500 = $5,000, on top of the $25,000 base price - $30,000 in all.

On August 2, 1909, the Army formally accepted the aircraft as Signal Corps Airplane No. 1 - the first airplane the U.S. military ever owned, and, for a time, the entire air fleet of the United States: a single machine.

The airplane went to work rather than to a museum. Shipped to College Park, Maryland, it became the trainer on which the Wrights taught the Army’s first pilots - Frank Lahm, Frederic Humphreys, and Benjamin Foulois. Foulois largely taught himself the rest by mail, writing to the Wrights in Dayton and flying the answers out over Texas. He stayed in uniform for decades, rose to major general, and eventually commanded the entire Army Air Corps.

Where the Wright Military Flyer Is Today

After it wore out as a trainer, the Wrights and the Smithsonian preserved the aircraft. Signal Corps Airplane No. 1 - the same machine Orville and Foulois flew to Alexandria and back - is on display today at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum.

It is strikingly small, fragile, and obviously handmade: spruce, muslin, and piano wire, every joint wrapped and every wire tuned by two bicycle mechanics from Ohio. Every fighter, airliner, and light plane that followed traces back to a machine that made 42.5 mph over Virginia and sold for $30,000.

Key Takeaways

• The U.S. Army bought its first airplane, the Wright Military Flyer (Signal Corps Airplane No. 1), on August 2, 1909, for $30,000.
• Lieutenant Thomas Selfridge became the first person killed in a powered-airplane crash on September 17, 1908, at Fort Myer, in an accident that also seriously injured Orville Wright.
• The 1909 acceptance flights met a two-man, one-hour endurance test (1:12:40 on July 27) and a 40 mph speed run to Alexandria (~42.5 mph on July 30).
• A $2,500-per-mph bonus for exceeding 40 mph added $5,000 to the $25,000 base price.
• The original aircraft is preserved at the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum, and Benjamin Foulois, the speed-run navigator, later rose to major general and led the Army Air Corps.