Updated: Fri Feb. 06 2009 6:19:10 PM

The Canadian Press

HAMILTON, Ont. — Former Canadian astronaut Bjarni Tryggvason has successfully taken a modern day version of the famed Silver Dart airborne.

The skin and bones aircraft is modelled after a ground-breaking plane that first flew almost 100 years ago in Cape Breton.

Tryggvason piloted the craft a few metres off the ground today for at least two brief flights at the Hamilton International Airport.

There are some improvements from the original, which in 1909 made history as the plane used in this country's first successful controlled, heavier-than-air, powered flight.

The new version has a cake tin with real instruments and nylon wing-coverings instead of silk.

He says the biggest difference with the space shuttle, which he flew on, is that his support team is much smaller.

Before the flight, Tryggvason said his job is to think about doing the right thing, and to get nervous after the fact.

"I'm not really worried about it," Tryggvason said.

"We know the original flew. We may learn a little bit but I think we'll succeed."

It was Feb. 23, 1909 that a horse-drawn sled pulled the silver-winged Silver Dart onto the ice of Baddeck Bay in Cape Breton. Pilot and designer J.A.D. McCurdy, who earned Canada's first pilot's licence, flew into the history books by staying a few metres in the air for almost a kilometre.

The first powered, human flight was on Dec. 17, 1903 in Kitty Hawk, N.C., in an aircraft designed by the Wright brothers.

The Silver Dart was notoriously unstable, so Tryggvason's volunteer group has been tweaking its design in hopes of making it fly better.

The group of volunteers in Welland, Ont., has been working on building the replica of the plane with the aim of flying it on the centenary.

The wings on the original were covered with silver-coloured silk - hence the aircraft's name - but the modern replica uses silver-coloured nylon.