Viewed from the distance of nearly a century, the Wright Brothers don’t seem as heroic as they really were. They had funny names and wore three-piece suits to the beach. To the modern eye, they look more like comedians than leading men. But they invented the science of aeronautics, thinking in three dimensions when the rest of the world couldn’t move beyond two. They made human flight possible, and every aircraft that has ever flown owes something to their work.
