I think the huge difference between the Wright brothers and everyone before (and contemporary) to them was that they devoted a non-trivial amount of time to the

I think the huge difference between the Wright brothers and everyone before (and contemporary) to them was that they devoted a non-trivial amount of time to the testing, measurement and understanding of airfoils in their wind tunnel. Before that everyone was guessing. They produced accurate scientific data before deciding how to build their next generation aircraft. Revelations such as wing aspect ratio as a performance factor were crucial. Wing and propeller airfoil selection was also done scientifically. NASA has a great deal of information about this. https://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/wrights/results.html https://www.grc.nasa.gov/WWW/K-12/airplane/wrights/results.h...