The Smithsonian has upheld that Orville and Wilbur Wright were the first men to fly a heavier-than-air craft in powered, sustained flight.
The decision comes after British publication “Jane’s All The World’s Aircraft” wrote in its latest edition that a Bavarian immigrant named Gustave Whitehead was actually the first man to fly.
Jane’s was an early chronicler of aviation in its infancy, and its title for first in flight carries a lot of weight. Jane's decision was based on research from Australian historian John Brown, who compiled records stating that on Aug. 14, 1901 in Bridgeport, Conn., Whitehead flew a heavier-than-air craft about half a mile, reaching a maximum altitude of about 40 feet. This is considerably longer and higher than the Wrights’ historic flight two years later, when their plane flew at about 10 feet altitude for 200 feet over the sand dunes in Kitty Hawk, N.C. Brown cites an article written in the Bridgeport Sunday Herald a few days after Whitehead's flight as evidence of the record.
The Smithsonian disputes these claims, and still holds that the Wright Brothers were the first to fly. The institute questioned the Herald article’s accuracy, and found evidence that it had been falsified. In the article, the reporter, Richard Howell, mentions two other eyewitnesses who were present for the flight, James Dickie and Andrew Cellic. Another reporter visited Bridgeport in 1936 to track down the two witnesses, and found no one who had heard of Cellic, though he did find Dickie.
“I believe the entire story of the Herald was imaginary and grew out of the comments Whitehead discussing what he hoped to get from his plane,” Dickie said. ”I was not present and did not witness any airplane flight on August 14, 1901, I do not remember or recall ever hearing of a flight with this particular plane or any other that Whitehead ever built.”
But the strongest evidence the Smithsonian presented is what Whitehead did, or rather, didn’t do after his record-setting flight. Senior Curator of the Division of Aeronautics at the National Air and Space Museum at the Smithsonian writes “not one of the powered machines that he built after 1902 ever left the ground. Nor did any of those machines resemble the aircraft that he claimed to have flown between 1901 to 1902. Why did he not follow up his early success? Why did he depart from a basic design that he claimed had been successful? Are we to assume that he forgot the secret of flight?”
