Although today it is a generally accepted fact that the Wright brothers were the first men to perfect a heavier-than-aircraft, it was not always so. Many people believe that early aviation experimenters like Richard Pearse of New Zealand or Preston Watson of Scotland might have a claim to be the first to fly.

One enigmatic figure in aviation history whose supporters say he made controlled flights as early as 1899 was Gustave Whitehead, a poor, German immigrant to the United States. Whitehead clearly built a number of airplanes before the Wrights were successful in 1903 at Kitty Hawk, but did any of his craft really fly?

According to an article in the January 1935 edition of Popular Aviation written by Stella Randolf and Harvey Phillips, Whitehead made his first flight in a steam-driven aircraft just outside Pittsburgh in the spring of 1899. Two years later, in August 1901, he made another flight with a gas-powered plane (which he designated as "Number 21") near the town of Bridgeport, Connecticut. In 1902 he made a flight with an aircraft numbered "22" that flew over Long Island Sound. If true, these flights would have meant Whitehead proceeded the Wright Brothers into the air by at least one, or maybe even three years. Unfortunately there is little information or evidence about the existence of the Pittsburgh flight. The account in Popular Aviation tells us that Whitehead hadn't expected the new airplane to go as far as it did, and he crashed into a building, destroying the craft.