The Wright brothers’ original aviation firm, the Wright Company, accomplished more than inventing the airplane. The company also experimented with and built hydroplanes and flying boats.
Photos of the company’s hydroplanes and aeroboats can be viewed in the Wright Brothers Collection, housed in Special Collections and Archives in the Wright State University Libraries.
The collection features images of Wright Company hydroplanes under construction and flying near the Miami River and aeroboat experiments on the river, as well as the 1922 christening of the Wilbur Wright, a flying boat built by the Wright Aeronautical Corporation, which was created when the Wright Company merged with the Glenn L. Martin Company of California.
More images are available at wright.edu/hydroplanes.
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- Wilbur and Orville Wright conducting hydroplane experiments on the Miami River in Dayton in March 1907. The Wrights experimented with hydroplanes and floats.
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- The Wright Model G Flyer Aeroboat, under construction in the Wright Company factory. Grover Loening designed the Model G for the Wright Company.
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- Fuselage of the Wright Model G Aeroboat under construction in the Wright Company factory.
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- The Wright Model G Aeroboat being assembled near the Miami River.
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- Orville Wright and others watch two men turning propellers to start the engine of the Wright Model G Aeroboat on the shore of the Miami River.
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- The Wright Model G Aeroboat in flight just above the Miami River.
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- Wright Model G Aeroboat taking off from the Miami River.
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- The Wright Model CH Flyer on the Miami River in the summer of 1913. The Flyer is fitted with a single large main pontoon and a smaller pontoon attached to the tail.
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- Orville Wright standing in the Miami River between the pontoons of a Wright Model CH Flyer in the summer of 1913. Two unidentified men sit in the seats of the Flyer.
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- Wright Model CH Flyer fitted with twin, multistep pontoons in flight over the Miami River. Two men sitting in a boat on the river are observing the flight.
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- Jon G. Kloechler and an unidentified man standing in the water near a slipway in front of a Wright Model B Flyer fitted with twin pontoons.
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- Wright Model B Flyer fitted with twin pontoons sitting in a hangar.
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- Percy Mackaye, Vilhjalmur Stefansson, and Orville and Katharine Wright wave from the Wright Aeronautical Corporation flying boat the Wilbur Wright at its christening in 1922.
