The Wright Brothers started out in a bicycle shop, their engineering was based on what they knew from bicycles. There are things like the CV joint that is not b

The Wright Brothers started out in a bicycle shop, their engineering was based on what they knew from bicycles. There are things like the CV joint that is not bicycle engineering but the nuts and bolts of how so many things that are put together can be worked out by people fluent in how bicycles work. All engineering on a bike is at human scale and can be related to, all of it is exposed and not hidden in magic black boxes. The Wright Brothers also added to the canon of bicycle design and engineering, with the left-hand and right-hand thread. They deeply understood how 'nuts and bolts' worked in order to solve a problem of the pedal and chainset of a bicycle falling out over prolonged usage, even if the bolts are done up tightly. Try and service a modern bicycle and when it comes to taking the pedals off you will only be able to do so if you appreciate left-hand and right-hand threads. The pedal on the left-hand side of a bike unscrews normally, the pedal on the right hand side needs you to unscrew it by turning the other way to expected, clockwise removes the pedal instead of securing it. Although a small innovation compared to building a whole plane, this left-hand/right-hand thread could have been devised by others, however it is the Wright Brothers that got there first, demonstrating their deeper understanding of how things are made and put together. Practically every auto manufacturer got started with bicycles instead of 'horseless carriages with horses'. The bicycle workshop is not recognised for what it is, the cradle of innovation and lightweight engineering (that contrasts with the 'big iron' of steam engines and what went before in the Industrial Revolution). Some of this innovation is just in little things like having standards, e.g. the 9/16" diameter of the screw on bicycle pedals. A lot of these things needed to be sorted out so that other things could be made.