The Work of the Wright brothers was just one link in a causal chain with beginnings preceding them by over 250 years.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation#Primitiv...
Which is a good related issue to the original point. Publicity, branding and PR is more important than being a good inventor.
* Sir George Cayley was first called the "father of the aeroplane" in 1846... Among his many achievements, his most important contributions to aeronautics include:
Conducting scientific aerodynamic experiments demonstrating drag and streamlining, movement of the centre of pressure, and the increase in lift from curving the wing surface.
* In 1871 Wenham and Browning made the first wind tunnel.
So no the Wrights didn't figured out that curved wings can produce enough power to lift the aircraft and no it was not a first to use wind tunnel experiments.
Or maybe not?
>“In his Codex on the Flight of Birds, da Vinci discusses the relationship between the centre of gravity and the centre of lifting pressure on a bird’s wing. He explains the behaviour of birds as they ascend against the wind, foreshadowing the modern concept of a stall,” says Jakab. “He demonstrates a rudimentary understanding of the relationship between a curved wing section and lift. He grasps the concept of air as a fluid, a foundation of the science of aerodynamics. Leonardo makes insightful observations of gliding flight by birds and the way in which they balance themselves with their wings and tail, just as the Wright brothers would do as they evolved their first aeronautical designs." (http://eandt.theiet.org/magazine/2016/01/leonardo-da-vinci-l...) //
Under "Legacy":
[quote]
Of all the men who attacked the flying problem in the 19th century, Otto Lilienthal was easily the most important. ... It is true that attempts at gliding had been made hundreds of years before him, and that in the nineteenth century, Cayley, Spencer, Wenham, Mouillard, and many others were reported to have made feeble attempts to glide, but their failures were so complete that nothing of value resulted.
— Wilbur Wright [21]
In September 1909, Orville Wright was in Germany making demonstration flights at Tempelhof aerodrome. He paid a call to Lilienthal's widow and, on behalf of himself and Wilbur, paid tribute to Lilienthal for his influence on aviation and on their own initial experiments in 1899.
[/quote]
You should also read about airfoil history: http://adg.stanford.edu/aa241/airfoils/airfoilhistory.html
Incidentally - I was not really intending on pointing to Lilienthal again, there are too many others, and the design later changed because it wasn't actually the best:
> Airfoils used by the Wright Brothers closely resembled Lilienthal's
> sections: thin and highly cambered.