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A Wright Model B aircraft, displayed at the College Park Aviation Museum, represents the direct successor to the Wright Model A that the U.S. Army accepted as Signal Corps Airplane No. 1 on August 2, 1909, for a purchase price of $30, 000 after the aircraft met the Army's speed and endurance requirements during trials at Fort Myer, Virginia. That original aircraft carried a 30-to-40-horsepower four-cylinder engine, spanned 37.3 feet (11.37 m), and measured 29.2 feet (8.9 m) long; it survives today in the collection of the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum. The Model B incorporated lessons learned from the Army's earliest operational use of the type at College Park Airport, where Wilbur Wright had begun training military pilots in October 1909. Improvements included wheeled landing gear in place of the original skids, a repositioned pilot's seat, and a refined control system, changes that made the aircraft more practical for routine military flying. College Park Airport, the training ground where these lessons were learned, is recognized as the world's oldest continuously operating airport and was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1977. Photograph by David Coleman.