Action Is Being Taken To Stop The State Of Connecticut From Claiming Their Gustave Whitehead Was First

The National Aviation Heritage Alliance (NAHA) is calling on Connecticut lawmakers to restore their support for the Wright brothers after a major publisher backed off its claim that Connecticut resident Gustave Whitehead flew first.

In a New York Times article published Friday, April 17, the publisher of Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft distanced itself from the March 2013 column that Connecticut lawmakers used to justify a law replacing the Wright brothers with Whitehead as the one to honor for the first powered flight.

The controversial column by IHS Jane’s editor-in-chief Paul Jackson “reflected Mr. Jackson’s opinion on the issue and not that of IHS Jane’s,” the company told the Times. NAHA confirmed the statement with IHS.

“IHS Jane’s has taken a major step back from the position it held in 2013 when we communicated with senior IHS executives,” said Tony Sculimbrene, NAHA executive director. “At that time, in phone calls, emails and by letter, IHS executives gave no indication that IHS Jane’s didn’t stand by the columns written by its editor in chief.”

In an October 2013 letter to IHS President and Chief Executive Officer Scott Key, NAHA and the First Flight Society of North Carolina jointly asked IHS to review the column’s position in light of a statement signed by more than 30 historians and scholars that “the evidence now available fails to support the claim” that Whitehead flew prior to the Wright brothers.

The letter included a copy of the historians’ statement.

In December 2013, IHS Industrials Vice President Jonathan Gear replied that “our investigation” of Jackson’s column found he had “followed our editorial processes for fact-based analysis.”

Gear’s letter added, “I recognize that there are opposing views on this historical analysis,” but Sculimbrene said it gave no hint that IHS considered Jackson’s column his opinion alone.

Jackson essentially rewrote aviation history by declaring Whitehead made a powered flight on Aug. 14, 1901 in Bridgeport, CT, more than two years before Dayton brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright made their well-documented flights at Kitty Hawk, N.C.

In his column, Jackson asserted “a vast cache of documentary evidence” supported his position, but he cited only long-discredited claims, primarily a fanciful report in the Bridgeport Herald…one filled with aeronautical impossibilities and roundly dismissed by aviation historians.

Despite the lack of new evidence, Connecticut lawmakers and the hometown press took the IHS Jane’s column as a seal of approval for the Whitehead claim. In June 2013, Connecticut Gov. Dannel Malloy signed an act replacing the Wright brothers with Whitehead as the person to honor for the first powered flight.

More recently, Connecticut legislators have introduced a bill designating Aug. 14 as Gustave Whitehead Day and one designating his airplane as the state pioneering aircraft. News reports around the world have reported on the issue as if the column raised legitimate doubts about the Wright brothers’ historical legacy.

Meanwhile, the Ohio House of Representatives is considering a bill introduced by State Rep. Richard Perales, R-Beavercreek, that would repudiate Connecticut’s claim. North Carolina previously passed similar legislation.

And so, the battle continues. The one thing that cannot be denied is that modern aviation of today is based on the achievements of the Wright Brothers. Although there are a number of other experimenters and inventors that should be credited with developing the knowledge of flight, it was the Wright family that turned flying into a business.

(Images from File)

FMI: www.aviationheritagearea.org