The Wright brothers: the first to flyWhat would the world be like without flight? Today we take the airplane for granted, but for centuries man could only dream of flight. It was only at the end of the 19th century that human flight began to become a reality. During this period people began to see flight as a possibility and enthusiastic inventors began working on and experimenting with many different types of flying machines. Although there were many determined people trying to develop an airplane, the Wrights were first due to their good testing methods and their focus on understanding and developing lift and control. The Wright brothers developed many good testing methods such as kite testing. Clive Hart tells us, “The Wrights worked toward ultimate success by undertaking a rationally ordered sequence of experiments, beginning in 1899 with the construction and testing of a biplane kite, whose wings could be twisted or “warped.” (Hart 38 ) The Wright brothers were different from many other experimenters in that they did not immediately attempt to develop a large, heavy, powered airplane, but experimented first with smaller kites and gliders According to the Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum, they used kites to test the their ideas and always tested their gliders as kites, which was a good way to check their performance before attempting manned flights. Testing the gliders gave them useful performance data that helped them understand flight better , to solve problems and improve their subsequent airplanes. ("Test Flying The Glider") Furthermore, Culick and Dunmore, in their book "On Great White Wings", explain how by testing their ideas with gliders, the Wright brothers were able able to raise the family. ......who weren't interested in getting off the ground with a dead-end project. ("The Revolutionary Concept") Their focus on understanding and developing lift and control was probably the main reason the Wright brothers were able to succeed. The evidence shows that, thanks to the Wright brothers' testing methods and their attention to the development of lift, and control, they managed to beat the crowds of enthusiastic aviation experimenters in the race to fly. Wilbur and Orville Wright were two men who worked very hard to understand and apply the principles of flight in building a practical and successful airplane. All their hard work paid off when, on that historic day in 1903, they finally made the first powered flight. The Wright brothers' invention changed the world and they will always be remembered as the two men who flew first.