The first step in any new program or project is research. The Wright Brothers first performed a literature search to find out the state of aeronautical knowledge at their time. They wrote to the Smithsonian and obtained technical papers regarding aerodynamics. They read about the works of Cayley, and Langley, and the hang-gliding flights of Otto Lilienthal.
They corresponded with Octave Chanute concerning some of their ideas. They studied the problems which had been encountered by previous flyers and they talked about possible solutions to the problems. They looked for answers to the problems of flight by observing large gliding birds. They decided that control of the flying aircraft would be the most crucial and hardest problem to solve and they had some ideas for solving that problem.
