I just finished reading The Wright Brothers, by David McCullough. It is a great story about two determined Americans who, like many engineers before and after, did their research and then designed, built, tested, improved, demonstrated, and marketed a remarkable invention.
The book describes not only their development process but also their personalities and family and friends, and I highly recommend it, but this is not a book review.
Flying is a risky endeavor, and Orville and Wilbur Wright made some key decisions to reduce personal and financial risk. They decided to conduct their early glider and airplane tests at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, which had not only good wind conditions for flying but also soft sand for landing. They also decided to never fly together to avoid the risk that a crash would kill them both (only once, after many successful flights, did they fly together near their home in Dayton, Ohio). They decided to keep their bicycle shop open to generate the profits needed to pay for the cost of their machines and the travel to North Carolina (they did not gamble their life savings on a speculative venture).
On the other hand, they did accept some risk: they were not sure that their experiments would succeed, and every flight brought the potential for a crash. Still, they learned from their failures, and managed the associated risks successfully. Their story has important lessons about effectively managing risks.
