Pilot-Builder Okay

As Wilbur and Orville Wright were discovering the ups -- and the downs -- of powered flight, you can bet they bent a few airframes. All you have to do is check their diaries.

"It happened to the Wright brothers on a daily basis," Ann Honious, a National Park Service historian, told the Dayton Daily News.

So a true replica of a Wright plane could very well suffer the same fate, right?

Mark Dusenberry found it out the hard way Friday morning at Huffman Prairie Flying Field in Ohio.

As a crowd of more than 2,000 people gathered to celebrate the 102nd anniversary of the Wright Flyer III, Dusenberry flew about 15-feet above the ground. As he entered a slow, gentle bank, one of his wings scraped the ground and the Wright replica promptly packed it in.

Dusenberry was unhurt in the accident.

"When he crashed, I was just scared," 9-year old Gavin Ransom told the Daily News. "When I saw the ambulance, it didn't help."

But if Dusenberry wasn't hurt in the crash, he's certainly more than a little disappointed.

"This is the most damage I've ever had," the Ohio Department of Transportation Engineer said.

FMI: http://wright.nasa.gov/sim.htm