While The Fuzz was poking around on the internet he came across this little bit:
"Wright brothers flew 2 years after Gustav Whitehead, researcher claims"
It appears that there may be something to this.
"That's the shocking claim by Australian aviation historian John Brown…"
"Even “Jane’s: All the World’s Aircraft” -- widely considered the essential bible of flight -- has acknowledged Whitehead's achievement and Brown's research. With the headline "justice delayed is justice denied…' "
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Gustave Whitehead (born Gustav Albin Weisskopf) and his 1901 monoplane Number 21
Whitehead in his working clothes
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From Jane's:
"Whitehead equipped his aircraft No. 21, known as the Condor, with two acetylene-fuelled engines of his own design: 10 hp for the road wheels and 20 hp as the main source of forward flight. 'Main' because at an appropriate moment during take-off, the flick of a lever would transfer the road engine's output to augment the motor driving the twin propellers. He was by no means the only aviator to incorporate powered wheels into his designs, but by the time Jane began compiling his annuals, the practice was in decline and soon became lost in the mists of history, to be reborn in different form later."
And:
"In the early hours of 14 August 1901, the Condor propelled itself along the darkened streets of Bridgeport, Connecticut, with Whitehead, his staff and an invited guest in attendance. In the still air of dawn, the Condor's wings were unfolded and it took off from open land at Fairfield, 15 miles from the city, and performed two demonstration sorties. The second was estimated as having covered 1½ miles at a height of 50 feet, during which slight turns in both directions were demonstrated.
"This, it must be stressed, was more than two years before the Wrights manhandled their Flyer from its shed and flew a couple of hundred feet in a straight line after lifting off from an adjacent wooden rail hammered into the ground. And, obviously, because of his demonstrated expertise in manoeuvring, Whitehead had flown missions like this before, suggesting his lead was even greater. (Two months earlier, his No. 20 was reported to have flown from the same field, albeit weighted with sandbags in lieu of an occupant.)"
So why do the Wright Bros. get the credit?
"The first [reason] is that critical examination of the Wrights' legacy is deflected by a non-sequitur of elephantine proportions: That because they were the most successful of the early aeroplane pioneers, they must have been 'the first to fly'."
And how about this?
"Secondly, as was only disclosed much later, under sanction of a Freedom of Information request by Senator Lowell Weicker Jr, the Smithsonian Institute in Washington - undisputed repository of American aviation history - secured possession of the precious Wright Flyer No. 1 from surviving brother Orville only after agreeing in a legally-binding document that "the Smithsonian shall [not state] any aircraft...earlier than the Wright aeroplane of 1903...was capable of carrying a man under its own power in controlled flight". History is normally written by researchers who have dispassionately analysed all relevant data and not, as here, by the lawyers of interested parties. (Strictly, the document is also nonsense, since the wording contrives to prohibit the Smithsonian from mentioning numerous prior dirigible airships - which are 'aircraft' too.)"
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| Gustave Whitehead and his 1901 monoplane taken near Whitehead's Pine Street shop. His infant daughter, Rose, sits on her father's lap, and the engine that powers the front landing-gear wheels is on the ground in front of the others. (1901) |
And so, there you have it. Most of this was taken from this-
Executive Overview: Jane's All the World's Aircraft: Development & Production
By Paul Jackson
3/8/2013
If you're bored you may want to look at it.
