To make the airplane, they had to study wind patterns and they also built kites. The kites were an unbelievable sight to see. People all around town would come and be amazed. To keep the kites in air as long as possible the Wright Brothers tries to control them from the ground. They built a kite with warped wing design. The kite had a 5-foot wing span and lines hung down from the tip of each wing and it worked perfectly!

In 1900, the Wright Brothers built their very first glider that used wing warping. One person could fly this glider. The pilot was supposed to lie face down while holding two ropes that controlled the wings. They test flew it at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, where there was  good steady wind that blew from the Atlantis Ocean. It was also good because it had a 100-foot sand dune.

The brothers took turns in flying the glider and discovered the trill of flying. But the rides only lasted a short time and the longest was only 10 seconds. They were determined to make better gliders.

In 1901, the brothers improved their glider and gave another try in Kitty Hawk. This time, the improved glider broke the world record by reaching 389 feet, but they were still not satisfied and believed they could make the glider go higher and fly longer.
One year later, the brothers had a new design that had rudder control. With wing warping and proper rudder movement, they could get more stable flight. This time they broke another record and the flight soared more than 600-feet.

In 1903, an American scientist, Samuel P. Langley, made one model that was powered by a small steam engine and flew three quarters of a mile without a pilot. The U.S. government then gave him more money to continue his research and experiments. On December 8^th , 1903 he tried his airplane, which was mounted on rails, fastened to the roof of a house boat. The experiment unfortunately failed and the plane raced down the rails and dived into the water.

Meanwhile, the Wright Brothers also dreamed about having an engine-powered flying machine controlled by a pilot. The failure of Langley's experiment saddened the Wright brothers, but did not stop them. They worked day and night and built the first engine powered airplane. Since they could not find an engine light enough for flight,