In history, the Wright brothers are most well known in the development of flight where the first successful sustained flight was on December 17,1903 at Kill Devil Hills, Kitty Hawk, NC. They successfully built and flew the first flying machine that powered itself and lifted itself off the ground. They studied birds and other engineer’s designs on wings for a flying machine, as well as plane designs. All aircraft design today, with exception to “flying wings" and helicopters, incorporate the key features of the Wright brothers aircraft. These include a propulsion system, the well-known airfoil, and rudders for directional movement.

The Wright Brothers used many concepts and theories in building and testing their designs. Such as using George Cayley’s, an English engineer, concept of an airplane. This incorporated fixed wings, a fuselage, a tail, and some type of forward propulsion that would allow air to pass over the wings to create the lift as it moved. They also incorporating Haratio Phillip and Lilienthal’s work of a cambered airfoil that they modified from Cayley’s concepts of his idea of a cambered airfoil.

During their designing, Wilbur realized while playing with a box that by compressing the edges in opposite directions, the box warped which lead to the idea of using warped wings. This was revolutionary a the time as most designs by others only allowed for forward fixed movement. The brothers were known to focus on control rather than just getting off the ground.

After a few test in their gliders that ended in low fly time, they decided to build a wind tunnel to test different wings to find the best design with the lowest drag and highest lift possible. This is similar to Bernoulli's principle of fluid dynamic as instead of having a liquid passing though a tube, they use a tunnel of wind. This is why many associate finding the design for an airfoil from using this principle. After many tests and understanding  previous theories of flight, the Wright Brothers were able to design an airplane that would eventually be involved in the most successful flight and change the view of flying forever.