In 1908, Wilbur Wright traveled to France to conduct demonstration flights of the Wright Brothers' aircraft. The aircraft that he had brought with him, a Wright Model A, had been damaged during shipping and customs inspections, so Wilbur had to spend two months repairing it before he could fly it. He chose Hunaudières racecourse at Le Mans, southwest of Paris, as the demonstration site, making his first flight there on August 8, 1908. This was the first public flight the Wright brothers had made. This public demonstration quashed any skepticism about their invention. Crowds were particularly impressed with the control that Wilbur had over the flight.

In January 1909 Wilbur moved his demonstrations to Pau, in the south of France, where the weather was warmer. Between 1908 and 1909 Wilbur made more than 100 flights and crowds of 100,000 were coming to watch the demonstrations. Orville and their sister Katharine joined Wilbur in Pau. After the series of exhibitions in France, Wilbur continued on to Italy where he trained Italian military pilots. In June 1909, the Wrights returned to Dayton where a 2-day event celebrated their accomplishments. Orville conducted flight trials for a U.S. Army contract in July 1909 and then he and Katharine traveled to Germany for more flight demonstrations and sales negotiations.