The 112th anniversary of the day the Wright Brothers made the world’s first sustained, powered flight in an airplane will be celebrated outside the San Diego Air Space Museum on Wednesday, when staff turn on a precise replica of the engine that propelled their aircraft. The 30-second demonstratio n will occur at 9:30 a.m., continuing an annual ritual that dates back about 20 years as part of the museum’s education programs. A replica of the engine that powered the plane the Wright Brothers flew in 1903 at Kitty Hawk will briefly be brought to life Wednesday outside the San Diego Air and Space Museum. (San Diego Air and Space Museum) The replica engine was built over a 2½-year period by Bud Monfort, Ted Tornesella and Lee Lowery, who were working as volunteer machinists for the museum in Balboa Park. They copied the engine that Charles E. Taylor designed for Wilbur and Orville Wright. The original engine propelled the Wright Flyer, the heavier-than-air plane that the Wright Brothers initially flew for 12 seconds on Dec. 17, 1903, at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. It launched the aviation age, which has helped make San Diego famous. In 1911, inventor Glenn Curtiss became the first American to fly a seaplane during a brief trip from Coronado’s North Island to San Diego Bay. A short time later, a Curtiss plane was hoisted onto a warship in the bay, leading the Navy to realize that such aircraft could be of great use to the military. These events led to San Diego becoming known as the birthplace of naval aviation. ...read more read less