A mere five years ago, I wrote a piece in the Jane's AWA foreword which mentioned, in passing, the Wrights having launched the age of aeroplane flight. I now believe I was wrong; and happy to admit to such, thanks to John's research [referring to this site's author, John Brown]. Forgive a self-congratulatory statement, but I wish that others were equally ready to admit that they have been wrong....

When John contacted me to ask whether I thought his researches would hold water, there were two challenges for me to address; two questions to be asked.

First: “Was Whitehead’s aircraft capable of flight?” Second: “Did it fly?” [].

Straight away, I was fascinated by the theory that a serious injustice had been done and that the history books needed to be re-written.

I adopted an engineer's approach. Too many debates about Whitehead have been kicked into the 'long grass' by diversionary wrangling over whether this or that witness was reliable; ...could have been mistaken; ...had an axe to grind; ...was a liar/fantasist/attention-seeker, etc. And that entirely spurious "Where's the photograph?" argument. I chose, first, to look at the engineering facts:

1. Was Whitehead’s aircraft capable of flight?

By 1900, the leading aviation pioneers possessed reasonably effective wings and propellers — not as efficient as today’s, but good enough to get them into the air and keep them there for a while.

The problem was that they didn’t have engines light and powerful enough to propel their aircraft. Engine technology was holding the aeroplane back. Uniquely, however, Whitehead had the benefits of Otto Lilienthal’s aerodynamic experiments back home in Germany, and he was also skilled at making good engines, having trained with MAN in Germany.

If any one person was first in a position to put together two main elements (reasonable wing and reasonable engine) needed for aeroplane flight, it was Whitehead.

Also, making my decision even easier: a replica of the Whitehead aircraft has been built in recent years....and shown that it can fly.

The Wrights executed a few short 'hops' in December 1903 with an aeroplane having a sophisticated wing and a 12 hp engine; Whitehead flew two years before in an aeroplane with an inferior wing, but 30 hp installed power to overcome that deficiency. Whitehead flew by brute force triumphing over aerodynamics, but there is nothing in the rules of 'coming first' that says you are not allowed to attack wallnuts with a sledgehammer.

Therefore, on the engineering facts alone, I am professionally convinced that the Whitehead aircraft was capable of flight.

2. That changes the second, historical, question from “Did it fly?” to “How could it not have flown?”

We know that Whitehead had a flyable aircraft.

...He was dedicating all his efforts to flying

...Newspaper articles (the first written by the Editor of the Bridgeport newspaper, who was present and saw with his own eyes) reported his flights on more than one occasion in 1901 and (a different aeroplane) 1902

...In later years, 17 people made formal statements saying they saw him fly

John's research completely destroys the previously accepted view, circulated by Orville Wright, that only one provincial newspaper took Whitehead seriously. Contrarywise, for a while, he was front-page news around the World and his work featured in learned journals such as The Scientific American and Aeronautical World.

Bizarrely, the most convincing argument for Whitehead having flown first comes from Orville Wright. In 1945, the surviving Wright brother wrote in an aviation magazine about the “Whitehead Legend” — dismissing the man and his aircraft as not worthy of serious consideration.

One can understand an old man like Wright wanting to make sure of his place in history, and one can accept that he might misinterpret a few facts in his own favour.

Had Wright said, “My brother and I were first to fly, but we were lucky to be first because this man Whitehead also had a darn fine aircraft” then that might be, just, believable.

However, as an aircraft engineer and designer himself, Orville knew full well that Whitehead’s Condor aircraft was a serious, flyable machine. Further, it beggars belief that he was so switched-off about the progress of aviation in 1900-03 that he missed the fact that Whitehead was flying a second, different aeroplane in 1902. Nonsense: He and his brother would have hung on to every word written and spoken about eveyone else trying to fly an aeroplane in those days -- and while they may have missed an edition of the Bridgeport Herald, is is not credible that they did not hear about it and also neglected flying articles in The Scientific American and the Aeronautical World. Orville deliberately and maliciously dismissed Whitehead's two aircraft and implied that any thoughts of them taking to the air were a joke. That sounds to me like a man desperately trying to bury some inconvenient facts.

Thus, if flying were a crime, I would expect a jury to convict Whitehead on the circumstantial evidence alone.

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