Believe you are most correct FNG.
The Wrights not only managed to build a powered, heavier than air machine and execute controlled flight they worked it out on paper first and derived or assembled from other sources the information necessary and taught themselves "Aero Engineering 101" while doing it. I believe that is where they are the real "inventors". Nothing against Da Vinci or the Kiwi guy (who I never heard of) or the farmer in Kentucky (or Tenessee) or Glen Curtis or anyone else who managed to craft a machine that got them in the air. After the Brothers did it and published most everything then everyone could do it.
The 1903 wright flyer did not use a catapult for launching, just a sloped track with a dolly on it upon which rested the aircraft. The later experiments a Huffman Prarie in Dayton OH used a catapult, mostly because the powerplants were so marginal I think.
The person who gets a lot less credit than he deserves is LT Thomas Selfredge. In the history books as the first heavier than air powered flight fatality. Though that is true, this Army Signal Corps officer had been a member of an aeronautical experimental group organized by some unknowns like Bell (as in Alexander Graham) and Glen Curtis ( a whiz with lightweight powerful engines and no mean shade tree mechanic and engineer) and was the closest thing the Army had to an aero engineer or somebody competent to judge what the Wrights were doing. He seemed to think the Wrights knew what they were doing, at least until the engine quit in a downwind turn...oops.