I would not really say that they openly "fought against the development of flight" by really trying to get groups together to rally against the idea, but there were plenty of people who had no problem spouting their views on the subject, feeling that the idea of a heavier-than-air vehicle taking to controlled flight to be an impossibility, which lead them to believe that the pursuit of such an endeavor to be foolhardy, expensive, insanely dangerous, and a total waste of time, financial, and intellectual resources.

Joseph LeConte (a physician, geologist, and professor at Berkley), way back in November of 1888, famously remarked that "Is it not demonstrated that a true flying machine, self-raising, self-sustaining, self-propelling, is physically impossible?". He was a firm opponent of the pursuit of heavier-than-air flight, considering it to be a waste of time and money and brainpower, and had no problem telling others his views on the topic.

Even famed inventor Thomas Edison famously threw in the towel pretty early on in the aeroplane aviation development field, when in 1895, talking about the idea of a potential heavier-than-air flying machine aeroplane being created, remarked that "It is apparent to me that the possibilities of the aeroplane, which two or three years ago were thought to hold the solution to the [flying machine] problem, have been exhausted, and that we must turn elsewhere." Edison seemed to be of the position that hydrogen-filled dirigibles and hot-air ballooning was where the intellectual and financial investment into any form of flying machines should go, and that the aeroplane concept should be totally abandoned as forever unworkable and unrealistic.

Also, as another example, in 1895 and 1896, William Thomson (a.k.a. Lord Kelvin or 1st Baron Kelvin) who was a famed Scottish physicist and engineer of his period, was quoted numerous times back then as blatantly and publicly spouting much negativity about the very idea of heavier-than-air flight. To quote him directly - "I can state flatly that heavier-than-air flying machines are impossible", as well as directly turning down an offer to join the Aeronautical Society, in a letter he wrote to them stating that "I have not the smallest molecule of faith in aerial navigation other than ballooning, or of the expectation of good results from any of the trials we heard of. So you will understand that I would not care to be a member of the Aeronautical Society."

Automotive designer and writer Worby Beaumont, in early 1900, also was a firm disbeliever in the concept of aeroplane flight, considering anyone who spent intellectual effort to study the endeavor to be wasting their time, stating that "The present generation will not [fly in the next century], and no practical engineer would devote himself to the problem now."

Guys like George Melville and Simon Newcomb as well, in the early days of the 20th Century, also expressed incredulity at the concept of heavier-than-air aeroplane development and flight, considering it to be a totally impractical endeavor for one to study and most likely a goal that was downright impossible to ever achieve, preferring to demand focus be put towards hot-air ballooning and dirigible air travel instead.

Of course, on December 17th, 1903, those guys began to be forced to eat their words when, on a beach in Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, Orville and Wilbur Wright proved those earlier naysayers, with their negative prophecies and predictions, to be wrong.