National Museum of the USAF - America's Action Heroes

Dayton - Wright Patterson AFB, Ohio

Wright Brothers he-man action figures are for sale in the U.S. Air Force Museum gift shop in Dayton, Ohio.

These testosterone ubermen, with their beefy chests and their hands positioned to grab a wrench or the toggle switch on a nuclear bomb site, were America's first nerd heroes.

The Wright boys boldly patented and fiercely protected their inventions from aviation copycats. They are much more appropriate as toys than the wimpy Alberto Santos-Dumont, their rival, who refused to patent his inventions and who hoped that air travel would bring peace to the world (He hanged himself in 1932.).

Orville Wright, in contrast, was the first person to kill someone else in a plane -- although with a bad landing, not his mighty American fists. Orville and Wilbur made possible the U.S. Air Force and, ultimately, the B-2 bomber, on display only a few hundred feet away from the gift shop, under which a big screen TV endlessly loops a promotional video whose narrator says, "America must always negotiate from a position of strength!"

Also see: U.S. Air Force Museum