"Well -- I see that we've yet to agree upon who it was that invented the airplane.  The people who flew one, or the people who imagined / thought about flying one?  Or the people who improved upon the design of the original two who actually did fly one?"

The story gets more complicated, if you watch the old movies of those crazy inventions that ended in failure and crashed, you will find that many of them are flying today.
Many were not bad inventions, some of them excellent, the problem was the technology and materials available in those times that were too heavy. Today with our technology, plastics, aluminium and other metals or fibers, what once was unable to fly, is flying!
Inventions sometimes needs centuries to become reality, Roman knew the power of steam, even did some engines, but it was needed to wait much more than a milenium for the invention of steel for making steam machines a reality, without steel, no steam motor!!
The invention of the plane is nothing more than a political question, Americans says that American did, English that British, French that French and Brasilians that were Brasilians. I, that am nothing of all this, I say that nobody invented the plane!

Stupidity also evolves!