Wilbur Wright and Orville Wright — popularly known as the Wright brothers —  were mechanically gifted. This quality they had inherited from their mother. They were good at school, but illness prevented them from attending college. Smithsonian Institution in 1899 responded to Wilbur’s query on the list of books on aeronautics. They pursued all the works. They studied the weather data of Kitty Hawk, which they selected as the ground for their experiments. They did work for three years on rudders, wings and their ratios and angles. After this preliminaries, they installed an engine on the plane. They built a wind tunnel to study wing designs. They also constructed a launch catapult. All experiments were documented. They designed their pioneering aircraft — each and every part was machined by them. Dec 17, 1903 at 10.35 AM Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, USA. After four years of work,history was created. The plane was air-borne for 12 seconds. Orville was at the controls. A photograph was snapped.

Later they improved the design at Ohio. They could succeed in longer flights. First the French and then the Americans joined the bandwagon. They patented many things, and became wealthy. A decade after Kitty Hawk, airplanes used in the World War I showed how they can be used as war-birds. Wilbur expired in 1912. Orville was alive till 1948.