Lost to Time

by Martin W. Sandler

  Christened Gustav Albin Weisskopf, he was born in Leutershausen, Germany, on January 1, 1874, a time when aviation pioneers were absorbed with experimenting with kites and gliders in a determined effort to unlock the secrets of aerodynamics that would lead to manned powered flight. While still a youngster, he became obsessed with the mystery of how birds flew, and he spent hours experimenting with paper kites. What had been a carefree family life came to an abrupt end in 1886, when he was orphaned.

  Only twelve years old, he made his way to Hamburg, where he was taken aboard a ship as a cabin boy. He emigrated to Brazil in 1889 and then spent four years at sea, years that gave him the opportunity to study the flight of sea and land birds around the world. He also survived four shipwrecks, the last of which, in 1894, put him ashore off the coast of Florida.

  AN EARLY PHOTO of Gustav Albin Weisskopf, who anglicized his name to Gustave Whitehead in the United States.

  Copyright by William J. O’Dwyer and Flughistorische Forschungsgemeinschaft Gustav Weisskopf.

  Taking on whatever jobs he could find, Weisskopf (who by this time had changed his name to Whitehead) worked his way northward, ending up in Boston in 1897. There he got a job with the Boston Aeronautical Society, for whom he built several gliders. His travels next took him to New York City, where he met his future wife, and then to Buffalo, where the couple was married (on the marriage certificate Whitehead listed his occupation as “aeronaut”). From Buffalo, the restless couple moved to Baltimore, where, according to the January 1988 edition of the journal Air Enthusiast, “There can be little doubt that Weisskopf was experimenting not only with aircraft design but also with engines.” In 1899, the couple moved yet again, this time to Pittsburgh. And it was there that Whitehead began his efforts at achieving powered flight.

  By the time he arrived in Pittsburgh, Whitehead was seriously short of funds. He was forced to find employment in a coal mine, but he devoted every spare moment to building a two-man aircraft powered by a steam engine with the help of a newly acquired friend, a blacksmith named Louis Darvarich. In an affidavit signed by Darvarich dated July 19, 1934, we are informed of what, if true, is a remarkable event in aviation history.

  LOUISA TUBA, a German-Hungarian living in Buffalo, married Gustave Whitehead in 1897.

  Copyright by William J. O’Dwyer and Flughistorische Forschungsgemeinschaft Gustav Weisskopf.

  In approximately April or May 1899, I was present and flew with Mr. Whitehead on the occasion when he succeeded in flying his machine, propelled by steam motor, on a flight of approximately a half mile distance, at a height of about 20 to 25 feet from the ground. This flight occurred in Pittsburgh, and the type of machine used by Mr. Whitehead was a monoplane. We were unable to rise high enough to avoid a three story building in our path, and when the machine fell, I was scalded severely by steam, for I had been firing the boiler. I was obliged to spend several weeks in hospital, and I recall the incident of the flight very clearly. Mr. Whitehead was not injured, as he had been in the front part of the machine steering it.

  Along with Darvarich’s testimony, there are also the sworn statements of Pittsburgh fireman Martin Devance, who was called to the scene of the crash. “I believe I arrived immediately after the [flying machine] crashed into a brick building, a newly constructed apartment house on the O’Neal Estate,” Devance affirmed. “I recall that someone was hurt and taken to the hospital. I am able to identify the inventor Gustave Whitehead from a picture shown to me.”

  If Darvarich is to be believed, this 1899 flight can only be regarded as historic. But it cannot officially be claimed as the first manned, powered flight, because there is no evidence that Whitehead made any attempt to record the event, and no measurements—speed, altitude, and exact distance flown—were taken. It also cannot be credited as a controlled flight since it resulted in a crash. And Darvarich’s testimony is the only eyewitness account of the flight itself that has ever been found. Still, it seems to have been an unprecedented achievement—one that would be a prelude to even more significant accomplishments when Whitehead moved to Bridgeport, Connecticut, in 1900.

  While the evidence of Whitehead’s 1899 flight might be limited, his growing reputation as a builder of aircraft and engines, if not news of the flight itself, obviously preceded him to Bridgeport. Shortly after he arrived, a total stranger approached him and presented him with a gift of 300 to be used in building a small workshop where he could carry on his aeronautical experiments, particularly in the development of engines. As soon as the workshop was constructed, Whitehead set about repairing and modifying the steam engine that had been damaged in the 1899 flight.

  WHITEHEAD’s ASSISTANT, ANTON PRUCKNER.

  Copyright by William J. O’Dwyer and Flughistorische Forschungsgemeinschaft Gustav Weisskopf.

  By the spring of 1901, Whitehead had not only repaired and improved the engine, he had, with the help of a young machinist named Anton Pruckner, begun building a new flying machine, which he named Airplane No. 21.

  By June, Airplane No. 21 not only had been completed, it also had captured attention well beyond Bridgeport. On June 8, 1901, in an article that most certainty must have piqued the interest of all those interested in pioneering aeronautical progress, Scientific American reported:

  A novel flying machine has just been completed by Mr. Gustave Whitehead of Bridgeport, Conn., and is now ready for the preliminary trials. Several experiments have been made, but as yet no free flights have been attempted. The machine is built after the model of a bird or bat. The body is 16 feet long and measures 21/2 feet at its greatest width and is 3 feet deep. It is well stayed with wooden ribs and braced with steel wires and covered with canvas which is tightly stretched over the frame. Four wheels, each one foot in diameter, support it while it stands on the ground. The front wheels are connected to a 10 horse power engine to get up speed on the ground, and the rear wheels are mounted like casters so that they can be steered by the aeronaut. On either side of the body are large aeroplanes, covered with silk and concave on the underside, which give the machine the appearance of a bird in flight. The ribs are bamboo poles, and are braced with steel wires. The wires are so arranged that they can be folded up. The 10-foot rudder, which corresponds to the tail of a bird, can also be folded up and can be moved up and down, so as to steer the machine on its horizontal course. A mast and bowsprit serve to hold all the parts in their proper relation.

  A THREE-VIEW DRAWING of Whitehead’s Airplane No. 21 of 1901.

  Copyright by William J. O’Dwyer and Flughistorische Forschungsgemeinschaft Gustav Weisskopf.

  Throughout the months of June, July, and August 1901, Whitehead, with the aid of several boys from his neighborhood, hauled Airplane No. 21 out to a field near Fairfield, Connecticut, where the wheels, engines, wings, and propellers of the craft were tested. By August 14, he was ready to give his flying machine the supreme test. What took place on that day was observed by reporter Richard Howell of the Bridgeport Herald, who recorded the events in a long, detailed article that appeared in the Herald four days later.

  According to Howell’s account, Whitehead began his momentous day even before dawn broke by placing two bags of sand, each weighing about 110 pounds, in Airplane No. 21 for ballast. He then set the controls so that the machine would make one unmanned revolution in the air before the power would automatically shut off and the plane would land. If this final trial was successful, Whitehead would be ready to fly the machine itself. Howell reported the dramatic events:

  When the power was shut, the air ship settled as lightly on the ground and not a stitch was broken or a rod bent. . . . An early morning milkman stopped in the road to see what was going on. His horse nearly ran away when the big white wings [were] flapped to see if they were all right.

  The nervous tension was growing at every clock tick and no one showed it more than Whitehead. . . . He stationed his two assistants behind the machine with instructions to hold on to the ropes and not let the machine get away. T
hen he took up his position in the great bird.

  He opened the throttle of the ground propeller and shot along the green at a rapid rate. “I’m going to start the wings!” he yelled. “Hold her now.” The two assistants held on the best they could but the ship shot up in the air almost like a kite. It was an exciting moment.

  “We can’t hold her!” shrieked one of the rope men. “Let go then!” shouted Whitehead back. They let go and as they did so the machine darted up through the air like a bird released from a cage. Whitehead was greatly excited and his hands flew from one part of the machine to another. The newspaperman and the two assistants stood still for a moment watching the air ship in amazement. Then they rushed down the sloping grade after the air ship. She was flying now about fifty feet above the ground and made a noise very much like the “chug, chug, chug,” of an elevator going down the shaft.

  Whitehead was calmer now and seemed to be enjoying the exhilaration of the novelty. He was headed straight for a clump of chestnut [trees] that grew on a high knoll. He was now about forty feet in the air and would have been high enough to escape the [trees] had they not been on a high ridge. He saw the danger ahead and when within two hundred yards of the [trees] made several attempts to manipulate the machinery so he could steer around, but the ship kept steadily on her course, heading for the trees. To strike them meant wrecking the air ship and very likely death or broken bones for the daring aeronaut.

  Here it was that Whitehead showed how to utilize a common sense principle which he had noticed the birds make use of thousands of times. . . . He simply shifted his weight more to one side than the other. This careened the ship to one side. She turned her nose away from the [trees] within fifty yards of them and took her course around them as prettily as a yacht on sea avoids a bar. The ability to control the air ship in this manner appeared to give Whitehead confidence, for he was seen to take time to look at the landscape about him. He looked back and waved his hand exclaiming, “I’ve got it at last.”

  He had now soared through the air for fully half a mile and as the field ended a short distance ahead the aeronaut shut off the power and prepared to light. He appeared to be fearful that the machine would dip ahead or dip back when the power was shut off but there was no sign of any such move on the part of the big bird. She settled down from a height of about fifty feet in two minutes after the propellers stopped. And she lighted on the ground on her four wooden wheels so lightly that Whitehead was not jarred in the least.

  Two days after the Bridgeport Herald article was published, two other news accounts, each brief and almost exactly alike in content, appeared in the New York Herald and the Boston Transcript. “Mr. Whitehead,” these articles stated in part, “last Tuesday night with two assistants, took his machine to a long field back of Fairfield and the inventor, for the first time, flew in his machine for half a mile. It worked perfectly, and the operator found no difficulty in handling it. Mr. Whitehead’s machine is equipped with two engines, one to propel it on the ground, on wheels, and the other to make the wings or propellers work.”

  Gustave Whitehead’s 1899 flight had not, as far as is known, been reported by any newspaper. But here were three newspaper accounts including one in the New York Herald, one of the nation’s most prestigious publications. And, unlike the 1899 flight, there was also in the Bridgeport Herald article a firsthand recorded reaction from Whitehead himself.

  It’s a funny sensation to fly. I never felt such a strange sensation as when the machine first left the ground and started on her flight. I heard nothing but the rumbling of the engine and the flapping of the big wings. I don’t think I saw anything during the first two minutes of the flight, for I was so excited by the sensations I experienced. When the ship had reached a height of about forty or fifty feet I began to wonder how much higher it would go. But just about that time I observed that she was sailing along easily and not raising any higher. I felt easier, for I still had a feeling of doubt about what was waiting for me further on. I began now to feel that I was safe and all that it would be necessary for me to do to keep from falling was to keep my head and not make any mistakes with the machinery. I never felt such a spirit of freedom as I did during the ten minutes I was soaring up above my fellow beings in a thing that my own brain had evolved. It was a sweet experience. It made me feel that I was far ahead of my brothers for I could fly like a bird, and they must walk.

  After recounting how Whitehead personally described how he had maneuvered around the clump of trees, Howell quoted Whitehead as stating:

  Not far ahead the long field ended with a piece of woods. When within a hundred yards of the woods, I shut off the power and then began to feel a little nervous about how the machine would act in settling to the ground, for so many flying machines have shown a tendency to fall either on the front or hind end and such a fall means broken bones for the operator. My machine began to settle evenly and I alighted on the ground with scarcely a jar. And not a thing was broken. That was the happiest moment of my life for I had demonstrated that the machine I have worked on for so many years would do what I claimed for it. It was a grand sensation to be flying through the air. There is nothing like it.

  If the Bridgeport Herald, New York Herald, and Boston Transcript articles are to be believed, then for more than one hundred years the world should have been celebrating Gustave Whitehead, not the Wright brothers. Yet skeptics have long challenged these articles, particularly the Bridgeport Herald account, upon which the other two shorter articles were obviously based. A good deal of the skepticism has to do with Richard Howell’s description of how Whitehead—before flying Airplane No. 21 on August 14, 1901—had placed sandbags in the machine and conducted a brief, unpiloted test flight. Those who doubt the veracity of the article state that such an unpiloted flight, no matter how brief, would have been impossible in such a primitive aircraft.

  Yet why would a respected newspaper such as the Bridgeport Herald report such a momentous successful flight if it didn’t really take place? Those who refuse to believe the article point out that although it has long since disappeared from the newspaper business, the practice of “hoax journalism” was widespread. Howell, the critics claim, looking for a sensational story, simply could have made the whole thing up.

  GUSTAVE WHITEHEAD POSES in 1901 with Airplane No. 21 and his four-cylinder gasoline engine, which turned Airplane No. 21’s propellers.

  Copyright by William J. O’Dwyer and Flughistorische Forschungsgemeinschaft Gustav Weisskopf.

  But Howell’s account of the events on August 14, 1901, is not the only eyewitness testimony. According to several individuals, Whitehead made three other flights on that day aside from the one Howell detailed, and each of these individuals swore they witnessed at least one of these flights. One of them was Whitehead’s chief assistant, Anton Pruckner. “I did witness and was present at the time of the 14 August 1901 flight,” swore Pruckner. “The flight was about a half mile in distance and about 50 feet or so in the air. The plane circled a little to one side and landed easily with no damage to it or the engine or the occupant who was Gustave Whitehead.”

  Junius Harworth was one of the boys who had helped Whitehead haul his flying machine from his workshop to the test field. In an affidavit dated August 21, 1934, Harworth swore, “On August 14, 1901, I was present and assisted on the occasion when Mr. Whitehead succeeded in flying his machine, propelled by a motor, to a height of 200 feet off the ground. . . . The distance flown was approximately one mile and a half and lasted to the best of my knowledge for four minutes.” According to the January 1988 issue of Air Enthusiast, the discrepancies in the Pruckner and Harworth affidavits arise from the fact that they describe two different flights of the four that Whitehead made on August 14, 1901.

  Like Junius Harworth, Alexander Gluck was also a schoolboy at the time of Whitehead’s achievement. In an affidavit dated July 19, 1934, Gluck swore that “approximately 1901 or 1902. . . . I was present on an occasion when Mr. Whitehead succeeded
in flying his machine, propelled by a motor on a flight of some distance. . . . The machine used by Mr. Whitehead was a monoplane with folded wings. I recall its having been pushed from the backyard of the residence where the Whitehead family then lived, 241 Pine Street, Bridgeport, Connecticut, which was opposite my residence at the time.”

  One of the most interesting accounts in support of the veracity of Whitehead’s flights came from a respected Bridgeport citizen and navy veteran, Frank Layne. When, in 1968, he was asked if he would agree to be interviewed, Layne, then ninety-two years old, responded to the reporter, “I do not understand why you would want to interview me. I think you are wasting much of your valuable time. Look, I never knew Mr. Whitehead personally or anything about his aircraft. All I did was watch him fly.” What Layne was most certain about, he told the reporter, was the date on which he saw Whitehead successfully take to the air. It was, he stated, August 14, 1901, the anniversary of his discharge from service in the Spanish-American War.

  Of all those who swore that Whitehead’s 1901 flights were genuine, the most respected authority was Stanley Yale Beach, aeronautical editor of Scientific American. In four separate issues of the magazine in the year 1906, Beach referred to Whitehead’s “1901 powered flights.” In one of these articles, Beach actually made the statement that “Whitehead in 1901 and Wright Brothers in 1903 have already flown for short distances with motor powered airplanes.” If nothing else, such a statement from so respected a person as Beach certainly seems to verify the magnitude of Whitehead’s 1901 achievement.

  According to both his neighbors and his various assistants, Whitehead spent the year following his 1901 flights constructing a new flying machine that he named Airplane No. 22. It was a craft very similar to its predecessor with the notable exception that it was powered by a kerosene-fueled, rather than steam-fueled, motor. And, according to several of Whitehead’s neighbors and assistants, on January 17, 1902, Whitehead again took to the skies. Although no eyewitness accounts of what took place on that day exist, what is certain is that the editor of the highly respected publication American Inventor obviously received news that Whitehead had again gone aloft. The editor then wrote to the aeronaut, asking him to verify what had taken place.