Aviation Pioneer Gustave Whitehead

He achieved his first motorized flight on August 14, 1901

It was on 14 August 1901 in the early morning hours, not far from Bridgeport, in the State of Connecticut, when a racy monoplane became airborne. At the controls was the German inventor and builder, Leutershausen born, Gustave A. Whitehead (Weisskopf). Powered by his self-built motors, the flight with his "No. 21" carried him a half a mile, then alighted gently and undamaged. All this occurred two years, four months and three days prior to the flight of the Wright Brothers.

At the peak of his creative work Whitehead was very successful and known. Later in life he became a victim of abuse, denounced as a swindler and a hushed silence surrounded him. Years after his death, when the aversions, antipathy and political bias due to the wars quieted down, when a chance for acceptance of the aviation pioneer seemed possible, Gustave Whitehead became a victim of a contractual agreement. An agreement that was signed between the heirs of the Wright Brothers and the Smithsonian Institution. And to this very day the Smithsonian is not open for a formal and objective examination of the formidable evidence detailing the historic event.

Gustave Albin Whitehead (Weisskopf) was born on 1 January 1874 in Leutershausen, Bavaria, Germany, the second child of Karl Weisskopf and his spouse Babetta. Karl was a foreman of a railroad construction crew and Babetta a good mother. When Gustave was still a young lad his experiments with paper kites earned him the nickname "the flyer". Very early on he had great interest in how birds flew. With a friend he began catching birds, tied their legs together and studied the "tethered flight of birds". The police forbade the young researchers from this activity. Not just a dreamer, Gustave developed a strong interest in the technology of the era. One Sunday Gustave took his best shoes and stood in a creek to test the theory of water wheels. In spite of the spoiled shoes his father did not have the heart to punish him, instead he showed himself to be open-minded towards the thirst for knowledge of his son.

His carefree childhood and family life came to a sudden end. By the age of 13 he had lost both his parents. Then he broke off an apprenticeship and started training as a mechanic. After completion Gustave traveled to Hamburg. In 1888 he was forcefully hired on to a crew of a sailing ship. In 1889, he returned to Germany and joined up with a family. They immigrated to Brazil but nothing kept him there. From here he went to sea for several years. There are only a few hints as to his whereabouts during this time. All through the years, however, thoughts about flying never left him. While on board different ships he learned English and became acquainted with the effects of wind and weather. Watching the birds also had a great impression on him. During this time Whitehead copied a newspaper article questioning why conquering the "air-ocean" should be denied to the creative mankind that conquered the "sea-ocean". In 1894 he finally went ashore for good. He was now in the Untied States where he would take on the "air-ocean" question in earnest.

In the year 1897 there is proof that he experimented with sailplanes in Boston. On behalf of the Aeronautical Club of Boston, the publisher J. B. Millet hired Whitehead to build and fly sailplanes. He built several sailplanes, of which one was inspired by the Lilienthal glider. This sailplane actually took off from the ground for short distances. Albert B. C. Horn, an assistant, wrote: "A lightweight would have flown further than Whitehead...". From Newspapers we learn that Whitehead in 1897 was hired by the manufacturer Horsman, New York, to build kites and to fly them. Here he met his future wife the Hungarian immigrant Luisa Tuba. Both were married in Buffalo on 24 November 1897. On the marriage certificate he listed his profession as Aeronaut.

During the following two years, Whitehead also spent some time in Baltimore. According to newspaper reports he made practical tests with sailplanes. Further there is proof that at that time he worked on motors as well.

In 1899 he found work in a coal mine near Pittsburgh. Here he met Louis Darvarich with whom he became friends. Darvarich lent Whitehead a hand at building the flying machines. A statutory declaration of 19 July 1934, certifies that Darvarich as companion became witness to an exceptional event of historical flight relevance. "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". -- There were people which remembered the crash of the flying machine. The fireman Martin Devane, who was called to the scene of the accident reported: "...I believe I arrived immediately after it crashed into a brick building, a newly constructed apartment house on the O'Neal Estate. 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".

In 1900 Whitehead moved from Pittsburgh to Bridgeport. In the summer of 1901 he began work in the basement (cellar) of a rented flat on airplane drafts and motors. This he did after his day shift, till very late at night. A certain Mr. Miller offered Whitehead a financial grant of $300.00. With that money he built a small workshop in the back of the house. Junius Harworth who often helped Whitehead remembered the fact, that the inventor, after building the workshop, repaired and modified a "steam engine" which he had brought from Pittsburgh. This engine had been damaged during an earlier test-flight. According to Harworth the engine ran perfectly after having been overhauled.

Whitehead soon earned himself a reputation as a mechanical engineer. A young emigrant by the name of Anton Pruckner, who just had completed four years of machine shop training in Hungary, became aware of Whitehead. Pruckner joined him and soon became his most important assistant.

As it turned out the year 1901 was to be Whitehead's most busiest and significant one. Many short "hops" which were made prior to the historic flight of 14 August 1901 showed big progress. These urged the pioneer to even greater efforts. He even had experimented with a flying machine with foldable wings, which allowed easier transport through the city in order to get to a suitable site for takeoff. Whitehead's "Nr. 21" was a racy looking monoplane with a wingspan of 36 feet. The wings being similar to those of a bat. In the summer of 1901 he flew that machine from Howard Avenue East to Wordin Avenue, flying it along the border of a property belonging to a gasworks. As Harworth recalls, after landing the flying machine was merely turned around and a further "leap" was taken back to Howard Avenue. These test flights were most important for his later success.

The "Bridgeport Herald" (a Sunday paper) reported on 18 August 1901 about a flight that took place on 14 August over a distance of a "whole" half-mile. In the article it says that the publisher of the paper Richard Howell, James Dickie and Andrew Celli, both Whitehead's assistant, and the inventor himself were on the location in Fairfield. After a cautious first trial, at which ballast was used to make up the weight of the pilot, Whitehead himself took the controls. When the propellers had been started Dickie and Celli no longer could keep the machine on the ground. Whitehead shouted to let go, and "then the newspaper man and the two assistant stood there speechless, watching the air-ship in amazement...as it flew away, some feet above the ground...". The pilot managed to steer around some chestnut trees by leaning over to one side which made the monoplane bank. Then he stopped the motors and gently alighted on the ground. The "New York Herald" and the "Boston Transcript" reported on this historical event on 19 August 1901. Even the "Wiener Luftschiffer Zeitung" (Vienna Airshippors Paper) printed an article on the event.

Anton Pruckner, with whom Whitehead had made many flights, swore the following under oath: "I did witness and was present at the time of the 14 August 1901 flight. The flight was about a 1/2 mile in distance overall 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". Further Junius Harworth attested in a statutory declaration that "...I was present on the occasion when Mr. Whitehead succeeded in flying his machine, propelled by a motor at Lordship Manor, Con- necticut...for about four minutes". During all this testing, Whitehead made more than one flight, unless his machine was damaged. Differences in witness reports are due to the fact, that on 14 August 1901 four flights were made.

To a large extent it was Whitehead's own dissatisfaction with what he had achieved, that he fell into oblivion. Once he said to Pruckner. "All these flights are not much good, because they don't last long enough. We just cannot fly to any old place. Flight will only then become of importance, when we can fly at any time to any give place".

When his discoveries, one after another, were credited to other people, who boasted themselves in front of the world of these pioneering achievements, and other's surpassed him in aircraft design, Whitehead lost interest. Further, with WWI denigration and prejudice against Germans the situation only worsened. On 10 October 1927, at the age of only 53 years, Whitehead died in Fairfield. All he left to his family was the self-built house, a small lot of land, and eight dollars in cash.