Traveling by plane has become a routine for going on vacation, visiting friends or family, and even for business trips. Say what you want about legroom, the mechanics of flying has never been so easy and airplanes are getting bigger and more luxurious from their humble beginnings. But until now, scientists and mechanics had to go a long way. And historically there is an even bigger dilemma: who exactly took the first flight?

The Wright Brothers

Bildschirmfoto 2020-06-05 um 15.50.18

Most kids are taught in school that the first people to ever fly were two brothers: Wilbur and Orville Wright from Dayton, Ohio. They were aircraft pioneers and are credited to have flown the first motor-operated airplane named Wright Flyer in the beginning of the twentieth century. But how is there even a controversy? And who could have flown an engine driven airplane before the Wright Brothers?

Gustave Whitehead

A man named John Brown claims that there was a conducted flight two whole years earlier than that of the Wright Brothers in 1901. The pilot’s name was Gustave Whitehead, a German pioneer, and apparently there is evidence that his flight was the very first one taking place in Bridgeport, Connecticut. However, most of the historians later dismissed him, while nowadays some support his claims.

The docu-drama First Flight – Conquest of the Skies on Get.factual discovers the two versions of the very first flight and illuminates both sides of the story.

______________________________
Take a flight back to 1901
Sign-up now with the code ‘Join20‘ and get 20% off your first month!
______________________________