Whitehead gained knowledge step by step and evolved a series of gliders and airplanes, each one a modification of its predecessor. In the spring of 1901, he completed ‘Airplane No. 21′ with which, on August 14, he claimed to have made his first successful powered flight in Fairfield, then a farming and residential town just west of Bridgeport. The flight, according to Whitehead, subsequent testimony from co-workers and an article in the August 18, 1901, Bridgeport Sunday Herald, covered a half mile and included a change of direction to avoid a stand of chestnut trees, plus a safe landing without damage to the aircraft.

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A variety of evidence, including photographs taken in 1901, shows Airplane No. 21 as an aerodynamically correct monoplane with such wing features as dihedral angle, camber and angle of incidence. The wings had no spars, but instead employed load and flight wires rigged in the manner long used in early airplanes. They provided ample support for the slow-flying craft. A ‘bowsprit’ and ‘mast’ reflected Whitehead’s nautical background, as did the boat-shaped fuselage in which the pilot could stand or sit at the control stick.

A movable horizontal tail provided up and down pitch control. For banks and turns, Whitehead shifted his weight. There also is evidence that wires may have been used to warp the wings for banking and turning. Alternating the power to the tractor propellers gave additional directional control.

Each wing had nine bamboo ribs attached to bamboo leading and trailing edges. Japanese-silk surfaces were attached on the underside of the wing structure, an arrangement that allowed the silk to billow up firmly around the ribs, thus reducing, but probably not eliminating, rib interference on the airflow over the wing. Tethered tow tests of a replica in 1986 showed the worst interferences occurred at the wingtips, where negative lift was encountered as liftoff approached. A slight change in rigging corrected the problem in the modern re-creation of the craft.

The craft had two engines-a ground engine and a flying engine. Both were fueled by the same calcium carbide (acetylene) generator. The ground engine was used for traveling on the plane’s four wheels to test sites and during the takeoff roll. At liftoff, fuel to the ground engine was valved off, with all power then going to the main, or flight, engine. The engines were’steam type,’ except that Whitehead used the expansion forces of acetylene instead of the much heavier steam system he had used in Pittsburgh. O’Dwyer cited Whitehead’s use of wheels in 1901, rather than skids, as enhancing his ‘first in flight’ claim. The Wright Flyer of 1903, with its skids, relied on a catapult and rail system to achieve flying speed.

Whitehead continued to build aircraft and lightweight engines in the ensuing decade. Having abandoned steam, he moved to acetylene, kerosene and gasoline for fuel. He advertised and sold his engines to aircraft builders nationally. A notable customer was Charles R. Wittemann of Long Island and New Jersey. Wittemann was one of the earliest (1906) designers and manufacturers of airplanes and gliders in the United States, and a builder in 1923 of the Army’s huge triplane, the six-engine Barling bomber. Whitehead appears to have reached the peak of his airframe success with the birdlike monoplanes of 1901 and 1902. Aircraft Nos. 20 through 23 were similar in design, but aluminum replaced bamboo for wing structures after No. 21. Later, seeking greater wing area to provide added lift for heavier engines, he changed to biplanes and even one triplane.

Meanwhile, the Wrights had achieved their own successful flight-and had begun taking steps to guard its place in the history books. From 1925 to 1948, the Wright Flyer was on display at London’s South Kensington Science Museum. Orville had sent it to England rather than to the Smithsonian because of his outrage at the Smithsonian’s display of Samuel P. Langley’s Aerodrome as the first man-carrying airplane ‘capable of sustained free flight,’ even though Langley’s craft had not actually flown. Langley had formerly served as secretary of the Smithsonian (see ‘Enduring Heritage’ in the January 1996 Aviation History).

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