THE BURNED OVER DISTRICT

Over a hundred years after the fact, people in Connecticut, North Carolina and Ohio are gearing up for a major fight over who was the first to achieve powered flight. History says it was the Wright Brothers in 1903 but recently IHS Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft published an article stating that Gustav Whitehead of Bridgeport CT achieved that feat in 1901.

In 2013, a well-regarded aviation publication surprised historians by declaring that Mr. Whitehead, a Bridgeport resident, had flown two years before Orville and Wilbur Wright skimmed the dunes of Kill Devil Hills in North Carolina in 1903.

“Justice Delayed Is Justice Denied,” read the headline in the publication, IHS Jane’s All the World’s Aircraft. “Whitehead has been shabbily treated by history,” the publication said.

Mr. Whitehead, a German immigrant, flew his own aircraft above Bridgeport and nearby Fairfield on Aug. 14, 1901, climbing 50 feet into the air and traveling more than a mile, according to the article, which was written by Paul Jackson, the editor of Jane’s.

Connecticut jumped at the chance to claim first-in-flight status, to the consternation of Ohio and North Carolina. The two states had long squabbled over which could claim the Wright brothers, who lived in Dayton but made their historic flight near Kitty Hawk...

Mr. Whitehead has long had his supporters, as have others who claimed to precede the Wrights, and researchers have studied the Whitehead claim since at least the 1930s. In the mid-1980s, Connecticut officials asked the Smithsonian Institution, which owns the Wright brothers’ plane, to hold a public hearing on the matter. No hearing was held.

Determined to prove that Mr. Whitehead’s plane could fly, a group led by a Connecticut teacher, Andy Kosch, built a replica and successfully flew it at Sikorsky Memorial Airport in Stratford in 1986, prompting a “60 Minutes” segment titled “Wright Is Wrong?”

We do know his design could have flown and despite a collection of photos of his handicrafts on the ground there is no picture of it in the air. Nor was there any significant publicity of such an event. In that regard the Wright Brothers were more capable and on such skills rests your place in history.