Ohio and the first practical aeroplane: the 1905 Wright Flyer III
Ohio’s official state aircraft is not the machine that flew at Kitty Hawk. It is the one the Wright brothers flew two years later, at home in Dayton.
Ohio’s state airplane is written into law, and the choice is pointed. Section 5.022 of the Ohio Revised Code adopts “The 1905 Wright Flyer III, first flown on June 23, 1905, near Dayton, Ohio”.
The aircraft the public remembers is the 1903 machine that flew at Kitty Hawk in North Carolina. Ohio’s statute names a different one. Wilbur and Orville Wright ran a bicycle business in Dayton and did their design, building and much of their flying there; the 1905 Flyer III was flown at Huffman Prairie, outside the city, and it is the machine usually described as the first practical aeroplane — one that could turn, circle and stay up long enough to be useful, rather than merely leave the ground.
The statute is therefore making a claim about which achievement mattered, and locating it in Ohio rather than in North Carolina. The rivalry between the two states over the birthplace of flight is old and is not settled by either state’s legislation.
Ohio’s connection to flight did not stop there. The General Assembly has also designated Ohio the “hub of innovation and opportunity for aerospace and aviation” in section 5.24 of the same chapter of the Revised Code.
Read the state airplane statute: https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/section-5.022
See the whole chapter of state insignia: https://codes.ohio.gov/ohio-revised-code/chapter-5