BuzzardBait - As I was reading through all the information here, it really surprised me that nobody had mentioned the Wright's wind tunnel. You nailed their achievement very well. They used sound scientific methods to test, re-test, adapt and improve. I have never read anything about any other people working to achieve flight during that time frame using a wind tunnel. Most others just kept building things, trying to fly in them and failing. But they didn't learn anything in the process. The Wrights were going to be able to fly no matter what anyone else was doing.