North Carolina: High hopes for flight celebration
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Orville Wright is at the controls of the "Wright Flyer" as his brother Wilbur looks on during the plane's first flight in 1903.
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KILL DEVIL HILLS, North Carolina (AP) -- The wind-blown dunes of North Carolina's Outer Banks served well as the launching pad for powered flight.
Organizers of the centennial celebration of the event that altered civilization say they hope the draw of that same sandy patch will be good enough to keep them out of debt.
Large-scale events in Fayetteville and Ohio served as prologue to the six-day celebration here that ends December 17 -- 100 years to the day since a pair of self-taught bicycle mechanics from Ohio first flew. But they struggled to draw both money and crowds and were left hundreds of thousands of dollars in the hole.
None of that seems to concern those planning North Carolina's anniversary celebration. They expect overflow crowds and a healthy bottom line when they're done.
"What goes on down at the Outer Banks is different. It's just hard to compare," said L.F. "Ferg" Norton, executive director of the First Flight Foundation, one of several groups pitching in to pay for the recognition at Wright Brothers Memorial Park in Kill Devil Hills. "They're really apples and oranges."
For one thing, the $10 million celebration at the park won't rely as much as the other events on the lure of high-tech jets or dazzling air shows.
They count on a few acres (several hectares) of prime real estate, the ground where Wilbur and Orville Wright first flew, to entice what they hope will be 35,000 visitors a day.
The celebration will end with the attempted flight of a $1.2 million reproduction of the Wright Flyer at the same moment as the original became airborne.
"This is an authentic piece of the celebration," said Julie Ketner Rigby, head of fund-raising for the foundation. "There really is a legacy to this. It's more than an event."
Falling short of goals
The Wright Brothers Memorial Park in Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, is preparing for a five-day celebration in December.
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Others, though, have relied on what they regarded as exclusive hooks to anchor their celebrations. And they've failed.
A 17-day, $23 million celebration in the Wright brothers' hometown of Dayton, Ohio, attracted 650,000 -- 50,000 more than anticipated -- but lost $3 million to $4 million because of lower-than-expected attendance at some exhibits.
The Festival of Flight in Fayetteville, North Carolina's largest recognition of the centennial, ended up about $173,000 in debt. Organizers of the ambitious, 11-day festival in May -- with its ties to Fort Bragg and the esteemed 82nd Airborne Division -- raised just $2 million toward a $3 million goal. And, though final figures haven't been released, the festival appears to have fallen well short of its attendance goal of 500,000.
Even the 94-year-old Paris Air Show, the largest trade conference in the aviation industry, slumped this year in a nation that reveres the Wright brothers more than any other outside of the United States.
Overall exhibit space was down 5 percent from 2001, the number of exhibitors dropped to 1,700 from 1,856, and planes were down to 206 from 226, organizers said. U.S. presence fell by 20 percent.
Lisbeth Evans, North Carolina's secretary of cultural resources, said these other events tried to do too much, stretching their recognition over too many days and too many sites.
The Experimental Aircraft Association AirVenture show in Oshkosh, Wisconsin, succeeded this year because organizers had no agenda except celebrating flight, Evans said.
The show attracted nearly 3,000 show planes, a record, during a weeklong run that ended August 4 and drew about 770,000 visitors. One of its most popular attractions was a pavilion dedicated to the centennial of flight.
"One thing is really clear -- this is about aviation," said Evans, whose department is coordinating the celebration on the Outer Banks. "I think you have to remember what we're celebrating."
Sherry Foster, the executive director of the U.S. Centennial of Flight Commission, said the group hasn't let the mixed success of early events diminish their good mood. She blames rainy weather for hurting attendance in Dayton and Fayetteville.
"I think that the events have been successful in promoting the centennial of flight, and I think they've also done very well inspiring the next generation," she said. "I think we're feeling very positive. We can see the momentum building."
Smaller celebration
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Visitors look at a display at the park's First Flight Pavilion.
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North Carolina counts on that momentum to peak with their event -- helped by the fact that they haven't planned an event with the mammoth proportions of the others and intend to concentrate on flight-related events.
Their ambitious early visions did include wide-ranging aircraft displays, the anchoring of an aircraft carrier off the Outer Banks to accept visiting dignitaries and the launching of a space module to Mars with the touch of a button at the park.
But over time, the physical limits of the barrier island and the realities of the financial landscape shaped a smaller celebration.
The National Park Service, which manages Wright Brothers Memorial Park, wouldn't allow some events and the size of the park limited the number of people and machines that could squeeze in.
"As somebody says, it's going to be the right size for the Outer Banks," Evans said.
Fund-raisers also found corporations less generous than they had hoped as the economy soured.
The First Flight Foundation has managed to raise $3.5 million toward its $5 million goal from sponsors, licensing agreements and VIP ticket sales, Rigby said.
An additional $600,000 in donations will ensure that the foundation meets its obligations, she said. Any money raised in addition to that will just ensure a better celebration and ultimately a better park.
"When you look at all the return on investment, I think we are in pretty good shape," she said. "I think there's a lot of value in economic terms that we're not capturing."
As of October 29, more than 151,000 of the 175,000 tickets available for each day of the celebration had been sold at $10 each, along with about 250 VIP packages at $2,003 each. No tickets are left for December 17.
Jim Mallory, a history buff and retired salesman from Lexington, Kentucky, bought five-day passes for himself and several family members.
"It's a matter of continued education," he said. "It's amazing (the Wright brothers) didn't kill themselves when you look at what they did."
Rigby and Norton say they expect similar interest -- and ticket sales -- to increase as the event draws closer.
"In the past few months I've come to believe that these other events have called attention to the re-enactment and the end of the year," Norton said. "I'm pretty optimistic."
Copyright 2003 The
Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
