Where Was Modern Flight Invented? Connecticut Believes It Holds the Answer
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Then I came to the line:
"Whitehead also built gliders until about 1906 and was photographed flying them."
And indeed, the photos are in the article. So, if he did indeed make powered flights, where are the photos of that? It would be one thing if he was super secretive and only ever claimed one powered flight. However, several flights are claimed, and there are no photos of any. My suspicion is that he tried, but was never very successful.
The debate between 1901 and 1903 (Whitehead Vs. Wright) is really uninteresting in the grand scheme of overall aviation history, and long before 1901 even members of the public could take a hot air balloon ride (and they were already being used in wars).
All that really happened in the early 1900s is that the weight-power ratio of engines got such that it was just waiting for someone to exploit that advancement. That's the reason why people didn't do it before 1901, not because nobody had invented the concept of a fixed wing aircraft (they had, with gliders) but because engines were simply too heavy for their power output to carry both themselves and a passenger.
PS - Yes, Whitehead/Wright deserve credit, they often had to tweak engines, optimise the design, optimise the propeller, and so on. Just saying that broader technology advancements played a large role which is often ignored.
The Wrights also had a propeller design that was 90% efficient, compared with the flat design (used on the Langley machine) that was 50% efficient. This was also crucial, because it had the effect of nearly halving the required power.
Power, weight, and efficiency are all critical. There's no way to tell if Whitehead's design would have flown from a replica based on a photo, because those 3 factors cannot be derived from a photo.
In the 19th C, some airflow work led to a constant, having a value of N; the Wrights used that constant for years, and their craft would not fly.
Eventually, having made every adjustment they could think to make, they began to question some of the expert work upon which they relied.
In the end, they built their own wind tunnel, ran many of the classic 19th C. experiments, and discovered that errors had been made, and that the constant in question had an actual value of 2N (might even have been 10N, it's late, I'm lazy and on my way to bed).
Important work. They were extremely methodical....
Do you believe those small and inefficiently shaped Whitehead wings would fly with the likely engine power he had? I don't. The replicas probably had far more powerful engines - you can make anything fly given enough power.
Maybe Whitehead's machine did fly - down a sufficiently steep hillside. I don't think that counts as flying under its own power, though.
Sustained flight required a significant increase in the size and weight of the aircraft (powerplants are heavy and the lift and control surfaces must be increased to compensate) which meant control through shifting weigh distribution was out. Creating an inherently stable aircraft with control authority was a game changer and a significant challenge that both parties deserve recognition for.
On the other hand, the Wright Flyer still exists, and exacting replicas have been made and flown, and their flight characteristics match the descriptions of the Wright's flights.
The rest of the evidence for Whitehead requires a lot of generous giving of benefit of the doubt as well.
I remember reading about these claims a few years ago and the only evidence at that time was the back page report in a newspaper that most Wright supporters denigrated as a satirical source akin to today's "The Onion". I was ready to hop in the comments section ready to decry the article only to find that the digitization of archives had completely changed the body of evidence supporting Whitehead's claim.
To be fair, the Wright brothers have their place as the first successful aviators as they were able to iterate and expand on their Wright Flyer's design to produce an unbroken lineage of aircraft leading to the modern day. Whitehead's design flew first but it was ultimately a dead end aside from his powerplant. I think there's an equal place in history for creators of the first practical, foundational, or modern design in a given category. Invention doesn't happen in a vacuum and researching the best combination of fundamental concepts and applying them as the Wright brothers did is equally revolutionary in my opinion
It's still controversial. For example, the photograph. If I was Whitehead, I'd take care to preserve the photo, making copies of it, etc. But that photo is the only one not preserved. The only evidence is that massively blurred smudge, which has to be very charitably interpreted as being a flying airplane.
Even if it is, I would suspect Whitehead would have flown it as he flew gliders - launching off the top of a hill and gliding down. That isn't really powered flight.
Nobody can prove Whitehead didn't fly, but extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence, and that is simply lacking for Whitehead's flight. I also find it odd that he did not challenge the Wright's patents for wing warping, etc., if he did it first.
In Brazil, Santos Dumont holds this title. French people also seem to give credit to him. Other countries also have their preferences and their own history.
To me, it seems there were so many people trying it that none of them really did it alone. If the title should go to the closest we have to an airplane today, Santos Dumont beats the Wright Brothers. But I'm Brazilian, so I'm biased. Not that I really care about the title...