The Wright brothers intentionally designed the Wright Flyer to be unstable to make it more maneuverable.

The Wright brothers developed the 1903 Wright Flyer with a 'canard' configuration, placing the horizontal elevator in the front rather than the rear. This design choice moved the center of pressure ahead of the center of gravity, creating inherent aerodynamic instability. Orville and Wilbur Wright drew this inspiration from their background in the bicycle business, where they observed that a bicycle is inherently unstable and requires constant pilot input to remain upright.During their flight tests at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, the brothers realized that a stable aircraft would resist a pilot's commands to turn or pitch. By making the aircraft unstable, they ensured it would respond instantly to the slightest control movements. This philosophy differed significantly from European contemporaries like Samuel Langley, who sought 'inherent stability' that would allow a plane to fly in a straight line without intervention.Modern aviation science refers to this concept as 'relaxed static stability.' While the 1903 Flyer was so unstable that it required the brothers' unique reflexes to stay airborne, modern aircraft like the General Dynamics F-16 Fighting Falcon use computer-driven fly-by-wire systems to manage this instability. These computers make hundreds of tiny adjustments per second to keep the jet from tumbling out of the sky.The benefit of this design remains the same today as it was in 1903: maneuverability. An unstable aircraft can change direction much faster than a stable one because it does not have to overcome its own natural tendency to stay level. This breakthrough in 'control-configured' design is why the Wright brothers are credited with inventing the first truly controllable aircraft rather than just a powered glider.