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 CENTENARY OF POWERED SUSTAINED CONTROLLED FLIGHT?
GUSTAVE WHITEHEAD
We keep hearing this expression, but is it? The question is a tough one, did Gustave Albin Whitehead (aka Weisskopf) (1874 - 1927) and possibly others fly with power before the December 17, 1903 events at Kitty Hawk? The facts are that there are accounts of powered flights alleged to have taken place by Whitehead in and around Connecticut predating those events.
The Bridgeport Sunday Herald of August 18, 1901 under the banner "Whitehead half mile flight",  has an account of a flight by Whitehead on August 14, 1901 by eyewitness sports editor, Dick Howell.
Nevertheless until fairly recently credence was given to a questionable statement made in 1939 and many recognized experts and institutions thought that investigations into Whitehead's efforts were a wasted effort. Finally research was done and a number of photos of a 1910 biplane have been found in an old album; under one photo, the words "Whitehead's Effort" had been penned. This album, along with four others, was found in the attic of a house, there were other photos in the albums that spanned from 1898 to 1916.
The only contemporary who tried to uncover Whitehead's history was Stella Randolph. Her 1937 book, "Lost Flights of Gustave Whitehead" has long been out of print, and her "Before the Wrights Flew" (1966) is unpublished.
A number of articles and books however condemned Whitehead as a "fraud" and "hoaxter" with little or no factual information to back up those claims. For example, the caption under a photo of Whitehead and his 1901 powered monoplane on exhibit at the Smithsonian Institution reads "... none of his aircraft ever flew."
How was this fact established and on what scientific grounds? The most often quoted reference that would answer these questions touted as "reliable," is the unsigned statement by Stanley Yale Beach that surfaced in 1939. Beach was the aeronautical editor for his grandfather's prestigious magazine, Scientific American. He claims to have been with Whitehead frequently from 1901 to 1910 and he claims that at no time did Whitehead ever say that he had flown, even though he is known to have built several machines after the date on which he was supposed to have flown.
By 1939, the aviation world had forgotten about Whitehead, and it was politically correct to join the ranks of those hailing the history of the Wrights. Beach's denial of any knowledge Whitehead ever flew came 12 years after Whitehead's death, so he wasn't able to defend himself. But Beach's unsigned, contradictory statement was enough to convince Orville Wright to declare that "... the design of the machine is in itself enough to refute the statements that the machine flew ....". Orville quoted Beach, as have all other Whitehead detractors since but in any case Orville insisted that total credit for the first  powered sustained controlled flight was given to himself and his brother in a secret agreement made with the Smithsonian Institution whereby the Wright Flyer of 1903 was provided for display.
Of special interest is where Beach states in his 1939 remarks that he never saw the ground engine that drove the front wheels. Contradictory to this statement of Beach, he himself had used photos that he claims to have taken in his Scientific American article of June 8, 1901 in which he also reports: "I found that he had built an aeroplane that was inherently stable and also was building engines. He built one of 20 horsepower to drive the two propellers of his monoplane and one of ten horsepower to propel it on the ground."
The front-view-photo caption reads: "Whitehead's Flying Machine, Showing Engine and Propellers." Gustave is seated on the ground under the right wing holding his daughter, Rose, on his lap. Immediately in front of them we can easily see and examine the ground motor used to propel the front wheels via a bicycle sprocket and chain.
The editors of Scientific American credited Whitehead for flying with power in 1901 and also 1903! The September 19, 1903, Scientific American full-page report by its aeronautical editor (the same Stanley Yale Beach) told of Whitehead making powered flights in what had been his triplane glider, an event which also predates the flights made at Kitty Hawk the following December! This issue reports: "By running with the machine against the wind after the motor had been started, the aeroplane was made to skim along above the ground at heights of from 3 to 16 feet for a distance, without the operator touching, of about 350 yards. It was possible to have traveled a much longer distance, without the operator touching terra firma, but for the operator's desire not to get too far above it. Although the motor was not developing its full power, owing to the speed not exceeding 1,000 R.P.M., it developed sufficient to move the machine against the wind …. Having proven that a less powerful motor will do the work, Mr. Whitehead is now constructing one of 6 horsepower which will weigh between 25 and 30 pounds ...."
In a 1906 issue Beach gives a report titled:"The Second Annual Exhibition of the Aero Club of America." Beach begins a three-page report, with photos, about who exhibited which aircraft and engines at the airshow and he reports that "The body of the framework of Gustave Whitehead's latest bat-like aeroplane was shown mounted on pneumatic-tired, ball bearing wire wheels .... Whitehead also exhibited the 2-cylinder steam engine which revolved the road wheels of his former bat machine, with which he made a number of short flights in 1901." Yet in 1939, Beach (conveniently?) fails to recall that clear credit.
The engine shown in the September 1903 article was the engine exhibited by Whitehead at the Second Annual Exhibit of the Aero Club of America in December 1906 that was shown in the photo between the Curtiss and Wright engines.
 
 
 
 

Of course, Whitehead is quoted often saying that his machine was anything but practical. The dawn of "a practical flying machine" did not occur at Kitty Hawk in December 1903 either. Flight at that time was made possible only by the 25 to 27mph headwind that aided in overcoming the ground drag the Wrights' underpowered aircraft of 1903 could not have otherwise overcome. Their Kitty Hawk Flyer would never rise from the ground in winds under 20mph.
The four liftoffs from their rail on December 17, 1903, were not achieved "by its own power." In fact, many subsequent flights relied upon a weight-driven catapult. To this date, no exact replica of their 1903 Flyer has ever rotated in still air or light headwinds and not until the Wrights increased the power of the engine and added a catapult to replace the missing 25mph headwinds did they get to fly their biplanes during the years that followed.
In the 1980's and 1990's two Whitehead airframes were built, the first one in the USA and the other in Germany. While modern equipment and tools were used to build the German-built reproduction of the Whitehead machine and an ultralight engine was utilised, it flew and because it did, Orville Wright's words as to the design's limitations were proven wrong.
As Gustave Whitehead said, he laid no claim to inventing the first practical flying machine but can the Wright Brothers make that claim based entirely on their 1903 flights? Their later efforts certainly entitle them to make that claim. Did Whitehead fly first using power? No one knows for sure. It could also have been A.M. Herring or maybe Sir Hiram Maxim, but it isn't important. While sufficient evidence exists to be sceptical as to who made the first "powered flight", what is without doubt is that the modern airplane as we know it is a development of the Wright's "practical" plane.

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