No photograph has been found conclusively showing any manned Whitehead machine in powered flight, although such photographs have been reported to exist.
The Bridgeport Daily Standard reported on 1 October 1904 that pictures were exhibited in the window of Lyon and Grumman's hardware store on Main Street in Bridgeport, Connecticut "showing Whitehead in his aeroplane about 20 feet from the ground and sailing along".
The article said: "Of course he has not perfected his invention but says that he has frequently flown over half a mile.
There are people who believe Whitehead is all that the newspapers have represented him to be.
The photographs show that he has the ability to make short flights".

A photo was displayed in the 1906 First Annual Exhibit of the Aero Club of America at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York City which showed an unpiloted Whitehead aircraft in flight.
The photo was mentioned in a 27 January 1906 Scientific American article which stated that the walls of the exhibit were covered with a large collection of photographs showing the machines of various inventors.
The report said, "No photographs of ... man-carrying machines in flight were shown, nor has any trustworthy account of their reported achievements ever been published.
A single blurred photograph of a large birdlike machine propelled by compressed air constructed by Whitehead in 1901 was the only other photograph besides that of Samuel Pierpont Langley's scale model machines of a motor-driven aeroplane in successful flight."
Peter L. Jakab, National Air and Space Museum (NASM) Associate Director and Curator of Early Flight, suggested that the image "may very well have been an in-flight photograph" of one of Whitehead's gliders.

In 2013, Australian researcher John Brown analyzed a panoramic photograph from the 1906 Aero Club Exhibit room which shows photographic images on the wall in the background.
Brown concluded that one of the images, which he examined by greatly enlarging it, was "the long lost photo of Whitehead's No.
21 in powered flight".
He said that the image also correlated with the drawing that was published in the 1901 Bridgeport Herald article which reported a Whitehead flight.
Brown's conclusion was disputed by aviation historian Carroll Gray, who said that a clear archival photograph is virtually identical to the enlarged image and proved "beyond any reasonable doubt" that the wall image from the 1906 exhibit showed the glider The California, built by aviation pioneer John Joseph Montgomery, on display suspended between trees at an exhibit in a California park in 1905.

Connecticut State Senator George Gunther and Andy Kosch, a high school science teacher, pilot, and Whitehead researcher, said that they heard about yet another photograph.
They were told that a sea captain named Brown had made a logbook entry describing Whitehead flying over Long Island Sound and had even photographed the airplane in flight.
A friend told Kosch that he had found the captain's leather-bound journal containing a photo of Whitehead in flight and a description of the event.
After some difficulty, Kosch made contact with the owners of the journal, but they told him that it was lost.
No photograph has been found conclusively showing any manned Whitehead machine in powered flight, although such photographs have been reported to exist. The Bridgeport Daily Standard reported on 1 October 1904 that pictures were exhibited in the window of Lyon and Grumman's hardware store on Main Street in Bridgeport, Connecticut "showing Whitehead in his aeroplane about 20 feet from the ground and sailing along". The article said: "Of course he has not perfected his invention but says that he has frequently flown over half a mile. There are people who believe Whitehead is all that the newspapers have represented him to be. The photographs show that he has the ability to make short flights".
A photo was displayed in the 1906 First Annual Exhibit of the Aero Club of America at the 69th Regiment Armory in New York City which showed an unpiloted Whitehead aircraft in flight. The photo was mentioned in a 27 January 1906 Scientific American article which stated that the walls of the exhibit were covered with a large collection of photographs showing the machines of various inventors. The report said, "No photographs of ... man-carrying machines in flight were shown, nor has any trustworthy account of their reported achievements ever been published. A single blurred photograph of a large birdlike machine propelled by compressed air constructed by Whitehead in 1901 was the only other photograph besides that of Samuel Pierpont Langley's scale model machines of a motor-driven aeroplane in successful flight." Peter L. Jakab, National Air and Space Museum (NASM) Associate Director and Curator of Early Flight, suggested that the image "may very well have been an in-flight photograph" of one of Whitehead's gliders.
In 2013, Australian researcher John Brown analyzed a panoramic photograph from the 1906 Aero Club Exhibit room which shows photographic images on the wall in the background. Brown concluded that one of the images, which he examined by greatly enlarging it, was "the long lost photo of Whitehead's No. 21 in powered flight". He said that the image also correlated with the drawing that was published in the 1901 Bridgeport Herald article which reported a Whitehead flight. Brown's conclusion was disputed by aviation historian Carroll Gray, who said that a clear archival photograph is virtually identical to the enlarged image and proved "beyond any reasonable doubt" that the wall image from the 1906 exhibit showed the glider The California, built by aviation pioneer John Joseph Montgomery, on display suspended between trees at an exhibit in a California park in 1905.
Connecticut State Senator George Gunther and Andy Kosch, a high school science teacher, pilot, and Whitehead researcher, said that they heard about yet another photograph. They were told that a sea captain named Brown had made a logbook entry describing Whitehead flying over Long Island Sound and had even photographed the airplane in flight. A friend told Kosch that he had found the captain's leather-bound journal containing a photo of Whitehead in flight and a description of the event. After some difficulty, Kosch made contact with the owners of the journal, but they told him that it was lost.
Gustave Whitehead