Gustave Whitehead holding a motor in front of his 1901 monoplane the Condor
Posted on 06/07/2013 7:41:22 AM PDT by JoeProBono
The Connecticut state Senate recently passed a bill striking Orville and Wilbur Wright from history, and assigning credit for the first powered flight to Gustave Whitehead instead.
Aviation historian John Brown found photographic evidence in March that Whitehead made a powered flight over Connecticut in 1901, "two years, four months, and three days before the Wright brothers."
The relevant section of House Bill 6671 reads, "The Governor shall proclaim a date certain in each year as Powered Flight Day to honor the first powered flight by [the Wright brothers] Gustave Whitehead and to commemorate the Connecticut aviation and aerospace industry."
In 1968, Connecticut declared Whitehead the “Father of Flight,” recognizing his contributions before there was evidence of his powered flight. Governor Dannel Malloy is expected to sign the new bill next week.
Widely described as "first in flight," even on North Carolina license plates, the Wright brothers made their historic 852-foot, 59-second flight at Kitty Hawk, N.C. on Dec. 17, 1903.
Historians have long known that several individuals and groups were working on flying machines around the same time, including German immigrant Whitehead.
But some historians remain unconvinced that Whitehead ever got off the ground. Though there are surviving written accounts, the photographic evidence is compelling but not definitive.
Connecticut has a long aviation history, and Sikorsky Aircraft Corp., maker of the Black Hawk helicopter, has headquarters just miles from the site of Whitehead’s flight.
Whitehead's plane had bat-like canvas wings and was called "The Condor No. 21," and Brown said he flew it over Bridgeport, Conn. at a height of 50 feet for an estimated 1.5 miles on the morning of Aug. 14, 1901.
Gustave Whitehead holding a motor in front of his 1901 monoplane the Condor
Democrats rewriting history......what’s new...
Well isn’t this just special.
Use to work with a New Zealander who swore the first powered flight was by a Kiwi in New Zealand.
I believe it was done by Miguelito Loveless and was steam powered.
“Democrats rewriting history......what’s new...”
If it’s true, what’s the problem? I’d rather know the real story.
I’ll need to see the video...
Just getting off the ground was not proof of flight. A strong wind could do that.
Sustained, three-axis controlled flight without the help of winds or gravity is the criteria for true flight.
Only the Wrights had developed controlled flight. The rest were no different than throwing a paper airplane across the room.
Dayton, Ohio - 1903” : NEWMAN, RANDY
Sing a song of long ago
When things were green and movin’ slow
And people’d stop to say hello
Or they’d say “hi” to you
“Would you like to come over for tea
With the missus and me?”
It’s a real nice way
To spend the day
In Dayton, Ohio
On a lazy Sunday afternoon in 1903
Sing a song of long ago
When things could grow
And days flowed quietly
The air was clean and you could see
And folks were nice to you
“Would you like to come over for tea
With the missus and me?”
It’s a real nice way
To spend the day
In Dayton, Ohio
On a lazy Sunday afternoon in 1903
If it’s true, what’s the problem? I’d rather know the real story.
Design is evolutionary. Why do subsequent aircraft, such as the fighters of WW1 look like the Wrights’ plane and not Whitehead’s? Answer: Whitehead’s did not fly as advertised.
Whether it is true (which I believe is likely a poor equivocation or specious technicality about something this man might have done) or not really isn’t the problem. The impetus for aviation advancing into the commonplace world came with the WBs....
This is just Democrat revisionism from a state that is captured by insanity, if one were to look at their gun legislation.
Seems the best way to prove or refute Whitehead is to see of a model based on his actual design would really fly.
The Wright brothers design looks alot like an airplane, as we know it today...this ‘Condor’ of Whitehead’s doesn’t share that resemblance, and I wonder if could really ‘fly’.
Gustave Whitehead was a Bavarian immigrant who settled in Connecticut. He claimed that he made several powered flights in 1901 and 1902, but there is little documentation. After that, he had money problems, but did make engines for several early airplanes. This story is from the 19-November-1901 New York Evening World.
Me too.
a local museum in CT, many years ago, had a special exhibit on Whitehead. It is all very impressive. For me, the clincher was the newspaper article from 1901 describing his flight. I trust historians would have gone over this with a fine toothed comb.
I think his story exemplies the professional hazards of being a “lone inventor”. No one to do PR, no one to really press his case because he was a nobody, so we see the result.
A “first” is useless if no one knows about it and nothing comes of it. The Wright Bros. capitalized on their flight and helped make aviation viable and started making planes for other people. These other guys who were allegedly first are just footnotes in history. It’s like the debate on who “discovered” America. The Vikings got to America first, but nothing came of it and no one knew about it. After Columbus, America became “the New World”; so I always consider Columbus the true discoverer just as I consider the Wrights “first in flight”.
‘Must’ve been gay.
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