The Wright Brothers
Wilbur and Orville Wright were two of the seven children of a church bishop and his wife. The first “aircraft” they saw was a toy their father brought home from a business trip. After building and repairing printing presses, bicycles and other equipment, they read of early attempts to design flying machines. Early aircraft were wildly unsafe, crashing repeatedly and even killing their pilots. Realizing that flight control was more important than engine power, the Wrights studied others’ designs and flight in nature in order to perfect their aircraft. They became the first human beings to pilot a controlled, powered, heavier-than-air plane, which they developed into the first practical fixed-wing aircraft.
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