Wright Brothers.

Orville (Dayton, USA, 1871-id., 1948) and Wilbur (Millville, USA, 1867, Dayton, id., 1912) American Inventors. The Wright brothers, the name that has passed into the annals of history the two U.S. aviation pioneers, Orville and Wilbur Wright, had received only an equivalent to the baccalaureate level training for a living they set up a repair business Bicycle: the company Wright Cycle Co., which could usefully apply their exceptional talent for practical mechanics.

This business allowed them to finance his other great passion, which began to engage systematically from 1899: research into the flight. Connoisseurs of the work of the German Otto Lilienthal (1848-1896), died in an accident during one of their planned flights near Berlin, who for many years had created countless gliders and established the fundamental principles of soaring flight, and American architect and engineer S. P. Langley (1834-1906), who developed many principles of aerodynamics and explained the process by which air can sustain the wings, took to build kites and gliders biplanes, who perfected through the introduction of elements such as the rudder vertical, horizontal elevator and ailerons.

The brothers built a flying machine of 9.76 m and 1.52 m wingspan string, equipped with a double vertical tail, in 1903, adapted the internal combustion engine: it was the first heavier-than-air flying machine. Initial flights of this instrument took place on 17 December 1903 at Kill Devil Downs, near Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, and allowed Wilbur, in the eyes of only five witnesses, starring a flight of nearly one minute during which traveled about 850 feet (about 26 m). To accomplish this historic feat, which marks the beginning of aviation, the Wright built a glider which was followed by a more evolved model, called Flyer III, with a weight of 388 kg and equipped with a four-cylinder engine capable of developing 21 hp. This ingenuity, had two propellers.

The feat went almost unnoticed at a time when man's attempts to fly heavier than air devices been unrecognized after successive failures of S. P. Langley, who had invested in their projects 50 000 dollars of government funds between 1897 and 1903. However, the situation changed dramatically in 1905 when the prestigious U.S. scientific journal Scientific American reported in detail to her readers feat.