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Bill To Add Historic Wright Flyer To Ohio Seal Gets Airing

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COLUMBUS, Ohio (AP) – A proposal to add the historic Wright Flyer to Ohio’s state seal has had its first airing.

The House State Government Committee heard the bill Wednesday. The idea has been proposed before but it hasn’t flown in the past.

It’s the latest effort in the Wright brothers’ home state to reinforce their place in history as aviation pioneers.

Connecticut claimed that a powered flight by another aviator, Gustave Whitehead, pre-dated Orville and Wilbur Wright’s 1903 flight off Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, by two years. A resolution cleared Ohio’s Legislature last month repudiating that claim.

A 2013 Connecticut law required the governor to proclaim a “Powered Flight Day” in Whitehead’s honor. The Ohio resolution rejected the idea that Whitehead ever flew a powered, heavier-than-air machine of his own design.