The Wright brothers, Orville and Wilbur, were American inventors generally credited with building the world's first successful airplane and making the first controlled, powered and sustained flight on December 17, 1903 in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. Over the next two years, they developed their flying machine into the first practical fixed-wing aircraft. While not the first to experiment with aircraft, the Wright brothers were the first to invent flight controls that allowed for mechanical flight of heavier-than-air machines.