Selecting the Pilot of the Century
by Michael DiFrisco

On December 17, 2003, just a few minutes before 10:35 a.m.—the to-the-minute centennial of powered flight—in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, some lucky pilot will climb aboard the world’s most exacting reproduction of the 1903 Wright Flyer. This undisputed “pilot of the century” will lay prone in the snug confines of the cradle which, with a wiggle of the hips, controls the wing warping mechanism, providing a primitive sort of directional control to man’s first powered flying machine. With neck craned to see down range, the pilot’s left hand will grasp the canard lever (controlling what the brothers called the front rudder), while the right hand clutches the engine control lever. Lying in the same position that Orville Wright took 100 years ago on these very sands of North Carolina’s Kill Devil Hills, the pilot will undoubtedly swallow hard and mutter something like, “Please, God, don’t let me screw up,” as the countdown clock ticks its way to zero. 

It’s time to re-create history.

Since EAA’s Countdown to Kitty Hawk initiative was announced under the original Wright Flyer at the Smithsonian Institution’s National Air and Space Museum in Washington, D.C., on September 12, 2000, the aviation world has been asking in hushed whispers, “Who will fly the Flyer?”

It’s a question worth asking. Instead of performing their aerial feat in front of a few indigenous Outer Banks families and members of the Kitty Hawk lifesaving squad, the pilot of the EAA’s 1903 Wright Flyer reproduction will be attempting to leave the earth in what is certainly the most unstable and difficult-to-handle airplane ever devised. (After all, it was the first.) And he or she will be doing it in front of an audience—both live and televised—that will likely number in the tens of millions.

At EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2002, EAA and Countdown to Kitty Hawk presenting sponsor Ford Motor Company introduced the four candidates selected for the coveted role of Pilot of the Century. Two of the four candidates will ultimately be chosen to reenact the roles of Orville and Wilbur Wright on December 17, 2003. 

Who is qualified to fly the Flyer?
How do you qualify to lie in the spot of honor on December 17, 2003? EAA President Tom Poberezny, , gave a hint of what makes a centennial Flyer pilot: “Each of these candidates already represents the innovative spirit of the Wright brothers through their dedication to creating or discovering aviation firsts.” Selected by EAA, The Wright Experience, and Ford Motor Company, the candidates are these four individuals:

• Dr. Kevin Kochersberger of Honeoye Falls, New York; Terry Queijo of Trappe, Maryland; Ken Hyde of Warrenton, Virginia; and Chris Johnson of Manassas, Virginia. 
   
  Dr. Kevin Kochersberger is an associate professor of mechanical engineering at the Rochester Institute of Technology and a 1,400-hour pilot. He’s on sabbatical and leading the testing of the Wright 1901 and 1902 gliders at the Langley Full Scale Tunnel in Hampton, Virginia. “My whole background is education,” Kevin says. “What I try to do is show students what incredible innovators the Wright brothers were. To weave this story into the classroom and the educational materials is an opportunity of a lifetime.” 
   
  Holding a Ph.D. in mechanical engineering from Virginia Polytechnic Institute & State University, Kevin began flying in 1976 when he built a Rogallo-wing hang glider from plans and flew with the other hang gliding pioneers at Jockeys Ridge in Nags Head, North Carolina. He was 15 years old. 
   
  In 1983 he earned his glider rating and two years later his power rating. He currently owns and operates a Piper Arrow and is an active flight instructor with the Blue Ridge Soaring Society. In 1996, Kevin advised a group of students on the construction of an 1896 Chanute-Herring hang glider replica. Before it went on display at the National Soaring Museum in Elmira, New York, Kevin had the chance to briefly fly the glider at the site of the original flights—the south shore of Lake Michigan—100 years later.
   
  Data from the tests Kevin is coordinating with the 1901 and 1902 Wright gliders at the Langley Full Scale Tunnel will be used to provide realism to the 1902 Wright Glider flight simulator and estimate handling qualities of the Wright aircraft.
   
• Terry Queijo was copilot of the historic first all-female flight crew for American Airlines. She currently captains Boeing 767s and 757s out of Washington, D.C. But her aviation influences began much earlier. 
   
  Terry’s father was a Supervisory Aerospace Engineer for NASA working closely with the Apollo 11 crew and their Lunar Lander. But her first real exposure to airplanes was in college when she learned to skydive and was soon competing in U.S. National Skydiving competitions. Terry then formed an all-female skydiving team that opened air shows and performed in demonstration jumps. She also found herself in the left seat flying skydivers.
   
  Her flying led to commercial jobs and after stints with several commuter airlines, Terry landed a job with American Airlines in 1985, making history by being a part of American’s first all-female flight crew. 
   
  About piloting the Flyer in December 2003, Terry says, “It would absolutely mean the world to me. But I know there are other candidates who are just as well qualified. I want the person who is the most qualified and best suited to fly the airplane.” 
   
• Ken Hyde is a retired American Airlines pilot and president and founder of The Wright Experience. Ken, whose company has been contracted by EAA to exactly reproduce the 1903 Wright Flyer, says, “There’s a good possibility that I’ll be one of the two finalists. But I won’t be disappointed if I’m not.”
   
  Ken earned both his pilot and mechanic certificates while he was in high school. Following graduation, he went to work as a mechanic for Capital Airlines. In 1961, Ken joined the Bendix Corporation as a co-pilot/mechanic.
   
  He joined American Airlines in 1965 and retired in 1998 with 33 years of service on equipment from DC-6s to 727s. The same year he went to work for American, he founded Virginia Aviation, a company specializing in antique aircraft restoration. Hyde-restored aircraft made their way into museums and gathered accolades, then in 1992 the Army Aviation Museum at Fort Rucker, Alabama, commissioned Ken to build a 1911 Wright Model B—the Army’s first practical airplane. It was then that his attentions and energies turned to telling the largely untold and unrecorded story of the Wright brothers through painstaking research and the reproduction of the Wrights’ flight experiments.
   
  “My goal is to see this reenactment, and to see the Wright brothers get the credit that they’ve never received in all these years, Ken says. “This is our last chance to do it correctly.”
   
• A major in the U.S. Air Force Reserves and American Airlines pilot, Chris Johnson says, “To be one of the four people who may be flying this thing, well, it’s beyond my wildest dreams.” Like Terry, Chris was also born to a NASA engineer. At the age of 16, Chris soloed and after graduating from high school, earned his pilot’s certificate. He attended the University of North Dakota, where he earned his commercial and flight instructor certificates and instrument, multi-engine, and CFII ratings. 
   
  Chris joined the U.S. Air Force in 1986 and a year later was flying C-141Bs out of Norton AFB in California. While in the Air Force, he had the opportunity to volunteer with an aircraft restoration company and participate as a crewmember on the B-25 In the Mood, during the 50th anniversary of the Doolittle Raid. Released from active duty in 1992, Chris took a job with American Airlines as a 727 flight engineer. He also joined the West Virginia Air National Guard. 
   
  In 1994, Chris began volunteering his time with The Wright Experience team and currently flies for American Airlines from Washington Dulles International Airport. Chris also owns a Luscombe 8E, a Cessna 180, and is part owner of a Grumman TBM-3E Avenger.

How do you train to fly the Flyer?
Certainly, learning to fly the Flyer will be like learning to fly all over again. The four candidates will undergo training and flight testing under the guidance of legendary research pilot Scott Crossfield. Working for organizations including the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA)—the predecessor of NASA—Scott made aeronautical history on November 20, 1953, as the first person to reach Mach 2, twice the speed of sound. Scott also served as pilot, design consultant, and eventually systems director and technical director for North American Aviation, working on such projects as the X-15 rocket-powered research plane and the Apollo command module.

For the next year, Ken, Terry, Chris, and Kevin will work with Scott, developing a training program that will include time in a 1902 Wright Glider flight simulator and flying an actual 1902 Wright Glider reproduction. In other words, the four pilots will roughly go through the same stages of learning and discovery and trial and error that the Wright brothers did, incrementally adding to their knowledge base and skill sets. 

Based on their skill and training results, two of the four candidates will be selected to assume the roles of either Orville or Wilbur Wright to fly at the First Flight Centennial Celebration at the Wright Brothers National Memorial near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, on December 17, 2003. 

“They’ll flip a coin, just as the brothers did a century ago,” says Scott, “to see who will fly the airplane if, in my mind, they’re both qualified.” Scott isn’t sugar coating the flight: “It’s going to be a very difficult task to learn how to fly an unstable aircraft because no one has had to do so for nearly 100 years. But,” he added with the determination of a steely-eyed test pilot, “we will do it.”
Once selected, EAA, Ford Motor Company, and Scott will announce the results around the time of EAA AirVenture Oshkosh 2003, where EAA’s completed 1903 Wright Flyer reproduction will be on public display as the centerpiece of the new Countdown to Kitty Hawk Pavilion. 

During training, each candidate will keep a journal, and their entries will be posted online at benchmarks in the training process to allow Web visitors to read about the pilots’ experiences. As the countdown continues, follow the progress of the pilots’ training and learn about new and exciting developments leading up to the centennial of flight at www.countdowntokittyhawk.org.