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 On August 14, 1901, a little over two years before the Wright brothers took off from Kitty Hawk, a German inventor named Gustave Whitehead soared over Bridgeport, Connecticut in a birdlike monoplane for approximately a half mile. Later on the same day, Whitehead and his power driven plane are reported to have made three other flights, according to the Bridgeport Sunday Post .
 Stanley Beach, aeronautical editor for the Scientific American , wrote an article which appeared in the January 1906 issue, reporting "a single blurred photograph of a large birdlike machine propelled by compressed air and which was constructed by Whitehead in 1901 was the only other photograph besides that of Langley's [scale model] machines of a motor-driven aeroplane in successful flight."
However, the plane was anything but practical, even by Whitehead's own admission. The plane's motor did not exceed a speed of 1,000 rpm, although the motor was sufficient to fly against a slight wind. However, on January 17, 1902, Whitehead reportedly made two flights in a monoplane with a kerosene-burning engine: one over Lordship Manor for two miles, and one over Long Island Sound for seven miles. The Wrights' longest flight was 852 feet. However, because Whitehead failed to document his flights, and in 1939 Stanley Beach recounted his earlier statements about Whitehead's flight, the inventor was not publicly credited with having invented powered flight.
For more information, see articles at http://www.flightjournal.com/articles/wff/wff1.asp and http://www.deepsky.com/~firstflight/ .
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