The Associated Press

DAYTON, Ohio - It sputtered and made noises like a machine gun firing short bursts.

But the men building a replica of the engine that lifted Orville and Wilbur Wright's airplane into flight 100 years ago were encouraged on Monday.

"It ran. It sounded good. It needs to be better, but it sounded good," said Terry Hesler, owner of a suburban Moraine machine tool shop where the engine is being built.

Hesler is an amateur airplane builder and head of a team building the reproduction 1903 Wright engine. He is working with Nick Engler, director of the Wright Brothers Aeroplane Co., to build the engine for display in the company's Birth of Aviation Pavilion at the Dayton Air Show, scheduled July 17-20 at the Dayton International Airport.

Engler hopes to power a 1903 plane replica with the engine and fly it along the Outer Banks of North Carolina where the Wright brothers made their historic first flight.