RIT Professor Ready for Historic Wright Brothers Flight Re-enactment

Kevin Kochersberger named a “Pilot of the Century”

Note: Digital photographs available

It’s history in the remaking. On Dec. 17, Kevin Kochersberger, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Rochester Institute of Technology, will re-enact one of the Wright brothers’ first-ever powered flights.

Kochersberger is one of two people chosen to fly a reproduction 1903 Wright Flyer to commemorate the 100th anniversary of powered flight. He, along with Terry Queijo, an American Airlines pilot, earned the chance when each was named a “Pilot of the Century” by the Experimental Aircraft Association.

The first re-enactment will be at 10:35 a.m. on Dec. 17, the 100th anniversary—to the minute—of the Wright brothers’ first powered flight. A second re-enactment will be at 2 p.m. Both flights will take place at Wright Brothers National Memorial, a national park near Kitty Hawk, N.C., the site of the Wrights brothers’ daring experiments and historic first flights.

Both Kochersberger and Queijo piloted the reproduction Wright Flyer in test flights last month.

“I can’t describe how incredible it felt when the flyer lifted off the track,” Kochersberger says. “Now I know with great confidence that Dec. 17 will be very special.”

Each flight in the 605-pound craft will be five feet above ground and cover a distance of 119 feet, a foot less than the Wright brothers’ first flight.

The flights by Kochersberger and Queijo, who was part of American Airlines’ first all-female flight crew in 1986, are the climax to the weeklong First Flight Centennial Celebration and the yearlong Countdown to Kitty Hawk sponsored by the Experimental Aircraft Association, Ford Motor Co. and The Wright Experience.

Kevin Kochersberger Bio

Kevin Kochersberger is an associate professor of mechanical engineering in the Kate Gleason College of Engineering at Rochester Institute of Technology in Rochester, N.Y.

A licensed pilot whose first flight was in a hang glider at age 15, Kochersberger worked with The Wright Experience, which coordinated research, design and testing of the reproduction 1903 Wright Flyer, and on other Wright brothers educational projects over the past five years.

On a yearlong sabbatical, 2001-2002, at NASA’s Langley Full Scale Tunnel in Virginia, Kochersberger focused on wind-tunnel testing of the replica aircraft, supported by the Discovery of Flight Foundation. Previously, he tested a 1910 Vertical 4 aircraft engine, and he and RIT graduate engineering students researched and supported reverse engineering of Wright propellers, airframes and engines at Delphi Automotive Systems in Henrietta, N.Y.

Kochersberger, 42, received his bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees from Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University in Blacksburg, Va. He began teaching at RIT in 1994. A native of Jamestown, N.Y., he currently resides in Honeoye Falls, N.Y.

First Flight Centennial Celebration Facts

• WHAT: First Flight Centennial Celebration (part of the yearlong Countdown to Kitty Hawk)

   

• WHEN: Dec. 12-17; first flight re-enactment at 10:35 a.m., Dec. 17; second re-enactment at 2 p.m., Dec. 17

   

• WHERE: Wright Brothers National Memorial, Kill Devil Hills, N.C. (near Kitty Hawk)

   

• PILOTS: Kevin Kochersberger, associate professor of mechanical engineering at Rochester Institute of Technology, and Terry Queijo, an American Airlines pilot

   

• SPONSORS: Experimental Aircraft Association, Ford Motor Co. and The Wright Experience; flight training funded by Northrop Grumman Corp.

   

• PHOTO DOCUMENTARY: Creation of the 1903 Wright Flyer and wind-tunnel tests are documented in photographs by Steve Diehl, associate professor of photographic arts and sciences at Rochester Institute of Technology, and Vici Zaremba-Diehl at http://www.rit.edu/upub/kittyhawk

   

• RELATED LINKS:

  http://www.rit.edu/upub/kittyhawk
  http://www.firstflightcentennial.com
  http://www.countdowntokittyhawk.org
  http://www.wrightexperience.com http://www.lfst.com (select Wright Stuff)
  http://www.nasa.gov/home/hqnews/2003/dec/HQ_03407_wind_results.html
  http://www.bihrle.com/company_news_press5.html
  http://www.nps.gov/wrbr
  http://www.hfmgv.org/museum/heroes/default.asp
  http://www.firstflightnc.com
  http://www.firstflight.org