Today is the 99th anniversary of the Wright Brothers first powered flight. Over the next year, there will be a series of events to celebrate the centennial. There are at least a couple of interesting groups behind the celebration.

US Centennial of Flight Commission website. There's also the EAA's Countdown to Kittyhawk and other projects underway.

My personal favorite is The Wright Experience which is working to develop an extremely accurate replica of the 1903 Wright Flyer. They've been working on their aircraft from the 1899 Glider to their 1911 Model B, propellors, wind tunnel and engines.

A lot of people don't appreciate the challenges that the Wright Brothers had to overcome. They built their early gliders based on what turned out to be faulty airfoil data, so they built what may be the first wind tunnel to scientifically test new designs. They built their own engine, then had to invent the propellor because none of the math existing at the time was adequate for the task. They realized that control was just as important as lift and stability, so they actually built their first designs deliberately unstable to test their ideas. Simulators based on some of their gliders show them to be almost unflyable, but they taught themselves to fly.