On December 17, 1903, with a twenty-one mile per hour wind blowing along the sand dunes of North Carolina, Wilbur Wright succeeded in flying a powered biplane a distance of 852 feet on his fourth attempt.  With that flight, Wilbur and Orville Wright are recognized internationally as the first to fly a powered airplane in a sustained and controlled manner.

The Wright Brothers, however, weren't the only early pioneers experimenting with flight at the start of the twentieth century, and others have laid claim to the distinction of being "first in flight."  

In fact, compelling evidence exists that Bridgeport's own Gustave Whitehead, a German immigrant who worked on his dream of a "heavier than air machine" at his Pine Street home, may have beat the Wright Brothers by well over a year.  An August 18, 1901article by Dick Howell, a sports editor for the Bridgeport Sunday Herald, reported that he had witnessed Whitehead fly his Airplane No. 21 for a half mile.  Whitehead himself later described two successful flights in a April, 1902 letter to the editor of American Inventor.

Regardless of who flew first, Gustave Whitehead: First in Flight captures the excitement of early flight through photographs of Whitehead, the Wright Brothers, Alberto Santos-Dumont, Otto Lilienthal and other early pioneers in powered flight.  The exhibition also features a half-size scale model of Whitehead's Airplane No. 21 and video clips of a flight made by a full-size replica.