Witches, Well-known Luck-Symbol in Early Aviation

The header of the page on which the eyewitness report about Gustave Whitehead's first flight appeared, was illustrated with a drawing of four witches:

The illustration of a witch - shown below - also headed a 1908 article in the Chicago Tribune describing flights by Glenn Curtiss in France.

Some months previously, the Associated Press used the "witch-on-a-broomstick" analogy to describe what is often referred to as the first "official*" powered flight in North America by Glenn Curtiss (*the first to be witnessed and measured by officials of an aviation organisation).

An illustration of a witch in flight was embossed on a commemorative penny, minted in 1910 to celebrate the founding of the Pennsylvania Aero Club. The penny was designed to be used by members as a good-luck charm.

The use of witches as symbols goes back to the beginnings of early aviation. 

Even Benjamin Franklin, who witnessd the first, manned balloon flight in America, drew parallels to witches when he wrote to the British botanist, Sir Joseph Banks on Nov. 17, 1783:

"... the improvement in the construction and management of the balloons has already made a rapid progress, and one cannot say how far it may go. A few months since the idea of witches riding thro* the air upon a broomstick, and that of philosophers upon a bag of smoke, would have appeared equally impossible and ridiculous."

The Writings of Benjamin Franklin, p.117