The story of aviation in Kansas sounds a little like the story of California’s Silicon Valley.

In the formative stages of aircraft manufacturing, Kansas was the place to be. One hundred years ago this week, Wilbur and Orville Wright made the first successful manned flight, but it didn’t take long for the momentum of that accomplishment to shift to Kansas.

Like Silicon Valley, the key for Kansas appears to have been a critical mass of the right people at the right time. Although the flat plains of Kansas offered plenty of potential landing sites for fledging pilots and experimental aircraft, there really was no reason the aircraft industry should flourish here instead of some other relatively level state.

But Wichita is known as the Air Capital of the World because of daring pioneers who had a passion for flight and enough business acumen to turn the manufacture of airplanes into a profitable venture. It started with men whose names are little known. One of those was E.M. Laird, whose employees included Walter Beech, Clyde Cessna and Lloyd Stearman, all of whom went on to start aircraft companies of their own.

Beech (now is Raytheon) and Cessna (now part of Textron Corp.) were pioneers and leaders in general aviation. Boeing, which traces one branch of its roots to Stearman, is a leader in military and commercial aircraft. Over the years many other aircraft companies and subcontractors were drawn to the aircraft hub in Wichita. When Bill Lear left Switzerland in 1962 to start a company to design, build and market a business jet, he chose Wichita.

Some numbers supplied by the Kansas Department of Commerce illustrate the economic impact of the aircraft business not only on Wichita but on the entire state. Three Wichita-based companies — Cessna, Raytheon and Bombardier/Learjet — delivered nearly half of all U.S. general aviation aircraft shipped in 2002. That’s 1,263 airplanes. Those three companies plus Boeing account for 18 percent of the manufacturing employment for the entire state. With a total employment of 32,000 workers, those four companies employ one of every nine people working in the Wichita metropolitan area.

When the aircraft industry was first getting off the ground, people interested in airplanes came to Wichita because that was the place to be. Despite some setbacks in the aircraft industry in recent years, Wichita still is the industry hub, but maybe there are new ventures for Kansans to pursue.

Looking at the history of the aircraft industry in Kansas might make one wonder whether the state could find a way to put itself in the limelight again, perhaps in the area of biotechnology. Linking the research capabilities of the state’s major universities to the businesses of pioneers in the bio-tech field, could we repeat the success of aircraft in the last century?

Maybe the state can use this week’s centennial of flight as an inspiration to look to new ventures that will make Kansas the place to be for those on the cutting edge of a key 21st century industry like biotechnology.