Lyman Ward (Icepick's accountant) is best known for playing Ferris Bueller's father in Ferris Bueller's Day Off (1986), which had been released the year before this episode. Three years before this episode, Cindy Pickett, who would later play the role of Ferris Bueller's mother, appeared on Magnum as "Karen Teal." The year before the "People vs Orville Wright" episode aired, Ward and Pickett were married.
Per the title, Orville Wright and his brother Wilbur invented the airplane and flew the first manned heavier than air craft at Kitty Hawk North Carolina in December 1903.