Ohio legislation challenges Conn. first-flight claim

COLUMBUS — The Ohio House today moved to formally chastise the state of Connecticut for making claims one of its residents had a flight before Ohio natives Orville and Wilbur Wright.

The symbolic HCR 8 repudiates Gustave Whitehead’s alleged August 1901 flight, more than two years before the Wrights took to the air.

“It’s a well-documented fact that Wilbur and Orrville Wright were the first ones to successfully make a controlled power flight in a heavier-than-air machine,” said Rep. Rick Perales, R-Beavercreek, primary sponsor of the resolution.

At issue is legislation approved by the state of Connecticut that honors Whitehead as the first person to make a controlled-powered flight.

History, however, has recorded the Wright Brothers building and testing airplanes at Kitty Hawk, N.C.