First Flight is a documentary about the controversy over the world’s first motorized flight. Every school child is taught that the brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright flew first in December 1903. But after years of research, Australian aviation historian John Brown argues that the German born immigrant to the US, Gustave Whitehead, flew two years before the Wright Brothers, in August 1901, in Bridgeport, Connecticut. The film investigates this claim and shows how one individual’s research can throw conventional theories to falter.
I am now totally convinced that Gustave Whitehead was first to fly a motorised vehicle (his “aircraft” also functioned as a car).
The Wrights claim was always, IMO, as flimsy as their aircraft but I hadn’t realised that there was such a serious, and believable, contender. IIRC, Whitehead’s flights were not only earlier, but higher and longer. His aircraft was a surprisingly “modern” monoplane:
The Wrights, particularly the ruthless Orville, were better businessmen and not only “froze out” Whitehead but ran a persistent campaign of disparagement against him and, later, his supporters.
As a boy he showed an interest in flight, experimenting with kites. He trained as a mechanic and later joined the crew of a sailing ship, learning more about wind, weather and bird flight. On steamships he learned about engines.
After reading your OP, I did a quick search and found that there were two people who had claims of flight before the Wright brothers. One was Gustave Whitehead, as you mentioned. He had more programs about his claim, but at the time, his claim lacked documentation.
Another claimant was Alberto Santos-Dumont. Some people say that the Wright brothers didn’t fulfill the requirements of flight because their plane was assisted in take-off.
There’s a lot of things the “Septics” claim, probably down to ignorance. Atlantis being one which (was actually Santorini) the first lightbulb (actually Swan) and much more not least Radar - and more besides.
It was Hargrave’s study of the aerofoil that was the breakthough, he didn’t invent the box kite. Whitehead used the aerofoil. The box kite experiments merely showed a better lift to drag ratio
Between 1891 and 1896, the German glider pioneer Otto Lilienthal built and flew a series of highly successful full-size gliders. During this period, Lilienthal made close to 2,000 brief flights in 16 different designs based on aerodynamic research he conducted in the 1870s and 1880s.
Whitehead was, of course, also German and arrived in the U.S. in 1893.
In 1896, Whitehead was hired as a mechanic for the Boston Aeronautical Society. He and mechanic Albert B. C. Horn built a Lilienthal-type glider and an ornithopter. Whitehead made a few short and low flights in the glider, but did not succeed in flying the ornithopter. Also in 1896, founding Society member Samuel Cabot employed Whitehead and carpenter James Crowell to build a Lilienthal glider.
