Three reasons are cited for the Wright brothers' success in an effort that many others failed at. First, they were a team. Both men worked congenially and cooperatively, read the same books, located and shared information, talked incessantly about the possibility of manned flight, and served as a consistent source of inspiration and encouragement to each other.

Both were glider pilots. Unlike some other engineers who experimented with the theories of flight. Orville and Wilbur Wright experienced the practical aspects of aerodynamics by building and flying in kites and gliders. They had realized from their experiments that the most serious challenge in manned flight would be stabilizing and maneuvering the aircraft one it was airborne.

In addition, the Wright brothers had designed more effective wings for the airplane than that had been previously engineered. Using a wind tunnel, they tested more than two hundred different wing designs, recording the effects of slight variations, in shape on the pressure of air on the wings. Attempts to achieve manned flight in the early nineteenth century were doomed, because the steam engines that powered the aircrafts were too heavy in proportion to the power that they produced. But by the end of the nineteenth century, when the brothers were experimenting with engineering options, a relatively light internal combustion engine had already been invented, and they were able to bring the ration of weight to power within acceptable limits for flights.