A newspaper report in 1901 credited him with making a powered controlled flight in the state of Connecticut, two years before the Wright Brothers did.
Gustave Whitehead, born in 1874 in Bavaria, was a German immigrant and aviation pioneer. Once in the US, he constructed both engines and the early flying machines that would use them. A newspaper report in 1901 credited him with making a powered controlled flight in the state of Connecticut, two years before the Wright Brothers did. However, he fell into obscurity after he ended his aeronautical work, which was from 1911 onwards. In the years after his death in 1927, Whitehead was resurrected somewhat in books that renewed a debate about his real contributions to the history of aviation.