Wright? Wrong!

 

The 26th June 2013 was a monumental day in aviation history. “Why, what happened?”, I hear you say. Well, I’ll tell you. But in order to do so we need to go back over 140 years, to the 1st January 1874. On this day in Leutershausen, Bavaria, to Karl and Babetta Weisskopf, was born a boy by the name of Gustave. By the time he had reached school age, he had  developed a lively interest in flight. He built models that flew, and was even recorded jumping off roofs, with home-made wings attached to his arms! Fortunately, he seems to have come to little harm.

 

Sadly, by 1887 both his parents were dead, and so young Gustave had to make his own way in the world. He trained as a mechanic, and eventually found work on a Norwegian ship called The Gromund, sailing between Europe and South America.

 

Sometime in 1893, Weisskopf arrived in the United States of America, and almost immediately anglicised his surname to Whitehead. He first found work with Harvard University, at their Blue Hill Weather Observatory, where among other things, his duties included the testing of kites.

 

Gustave Whitehead (1874-1927)

 

In 1896 Whitehead  found more gainful employment at the Boston Aeronautical Society, as a mechanic. In this capacity, he built a number of gliders and made a few flights in them himself.  Around this time, he also evolved an interest in the development of engines, and eventually built a number of his own examples. What followed is perhaps inevitable. Gustave began to work on the unrealised dream of powered flight. He constructed a number of prototypes, until …..

 

On 14th August 1901, Whitehead took his his latest attempt at a heavier than air craft, unimaginatively called ‘Number 21’, to a site near the village of Fairfield, about 1.5 miles outside Bridgeport, Connecticut. It had a wingspan of 36 feet, and was powered by two engines. A 10hp engine provided power to the wheels, to propel the craft to take off speed, and a 20hp engine that powered two propellers for momentum in flight. The world’s press had been invited, and at 5.02am the contraption started to move along the ground, gathering speed as it went. Then, to the amazement of those in attendance, he actually took off! His first flight covered a distance of about a half a mile, or around 2,600 feet. He then took off again, this time achieving a distance of approximately one and a half miles, or about 7,800 feet, at a steady height of around 50 feet. This momentous achievement, witnessed by numerous individuals, was front page news around the world, with over 130 contemporary newspaper articles reporting the flights.

 

 

 

Gustave Whitehead’s ‘Number 21’

 

Compare this if you will, to the first flight of the Wright brothers ‘Flyer’, on the 17th December 1903, during which Orville Wright achieved a distance of only 120 feet.  Considering that the wingspan of a Boeing 747 is 196 feet, a somewhat underwhelming distance! So, what is the problem? If Whitehead achieved powered flight in a heavier than air craft in August 1901, why do the history books record Orville Wright’s punier effort of December 1903, as the first occasion this feat was accomplished?

 

The answer seems to be photographic evidence. Sharp imaged, good quality photographs exist to prove that the ‘Flyer’ flew. By comparison, only one very blurred image of Whitehead’s achievement was ever known to exist, and that has since been lost. All that remains today, is an even less clear image, from a photograph  of an Aero Club of America Exhibition taken in 1906, purporting to show the original photograph, as part of the exhibition. Unsurprisingly, a small section of a 1906 photograph depicting a blurred photograph, is very blurred indeed, and I have included it below, merely to illustrate that it is inadmissible as evidence. From some angles, it even looks a little like a cross-section of the Turin Shroud!

 

Orville Wright soars into the sky!

 

Aviation history?

 

 

 An attempt at reproducing an unblurred version of the photograph.

 

In later years, whilst never achieving the level of success enjoyed by the Wright brothers, Whitehead became a leading supplier of engines and airframes. In 1907, a flying machine fitted with a Whitehead engine, the construction of which had been financed by the United States Navy, was displayed at the World Fair in Jamestown, Virginia. Thus, the first aircraft in US military history, was powered by one of Gustave’s engines!

 

On 10th October 1927, Whitehead was repairing a car, and was in the process of attempting to lift out the engine. Sadly, whilst lifting this heavy weight, he suffered a heart attack . Despite managing to stagger back into his house, the attack proved fatal. Gustave was 53 years old at the time of his death.

 

To date, two replicas of Whitehead’s ‘Number 21’ have been constructed, one in the United States in 1986, and one in Germany in 1997. Both replicas flew successfully,  thereby proving the airworthiness of the original aircraft.

 

“So what happened on the 26th June 2013?”  Well, I was just coming to that. A little earlier that year, ‘Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft’, the world’s leading authority on aviation history, having weighed the evidence, formally recognised Gustave Whitehead’s flight, on the 14th August 1901, as the first manned flight of a heavier than air craft. Official recognition followed, and on the 26th June, Gustave’s achievement was commemorated by the enactment of legislation, signed by the Connecticut State Governor. So, it’s official; the first person to take to the skies in a heavier than air powered aircraft, was Gustave Whitehead and not Orville Wright! How different his life might have been had he hired a decent photographer on that summer’s day in 1901.

 

Source:

gustave-whitehead.com