Gustave Whitehead was born in Bavaria in 1874, was orphaned young, and went to sea, where he studied how seabirds used the wind. After immigrating to the United States around 1893 he built advertising kites for a toy company in New York, worked at a Harvard meteorological station, and built gliders for the Boston Aeronautical Society. An assistant later claimed that in 1899 they flew a steam-powered monoplane half a mile in Pittsburgh before hitting a three-story brick building, and that police banned further tests; historians dismiss it because no steam plant of the time could lift itself. In Connecticut he built the No. 21, with a 36-foot wingspan, bamboo ribs, a 10-horsepower engine for the wheels and a 20-horsepower acetylene engine turning counter-rotating propellers.
On August 14, 1901, the Bridgeport Herald reported that he flew the No. 21 half a mile at 50 feet near Fairfield, steering around trees by shifting his weight. A named witness later swore he was never there, though he had a grudge over unpaid hauling fees. Whitehead wrote of 1902 flights of two and seven miles over Long Island Sound in the No. 22 but said the photographs failed to develop. He never patented his aircraft, lost an eye in a factory, hid his tools in a neighbor's cellar from creditors, and died of a heart attack in 1927 while lifting an engine block. Stella Randolph and William O'Dwyer later collected witness accounts, and Connecticut passed a law naming him first in flight.
The Smithsonian's 1948 contract for the Wright Flyer bars it from crediting anyone else with earlier controlled powered flight.
The Herald's account, illustrated with a drawing said to be based on a lost photograph, was likely written by a sports reporter known for exaggeration.
His lightweight engines were in demand among other aviators, but he took only enough orders to fund his next experiment.
Modern No. 21 replicas have flown, but with lighter materials, modern engines and altered controls.
Orville Wright wrote a detailed rebuttal of the Whitehead claims in 1945.
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