trikikiwi
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Any true New Zealander will tell you that Richard Pearse
beat the Wright Brothers to 'sustained powered flight'.
Richard Pearse
FIRST FLYER
Richard Pearse: "Mad Pearse", "Bamboo Dick", self-taught inventor, prophetic designer, trail blazing aviator and eccentric visionary. On or about 31st March 1903 a reclusive New Zealand farmer Richard Pearse climbed into a self-built monoplane and flew for about 140 metres before crashing into a gorse hedge on his Waitohi property . Even at half the distance Pearse must have felt the liberating but anxious exhilaration of flying. There is uncertainty about whether it met the definitions of sustained flight, but it came eight months before the Wright Brothers entered the record books at Kitty Hawk North Carolina on 17th December 1903.
The centenary of the achievement of the Wright Brothers was celebrated in 2003 as one of the defining moments of the Twentieth Century. The event is etched in our consciousness as an enduring symbol of imagination and technological triumph in man’s never-ending confrontation with nature. Conversely, Pearse was largely forgotten until, when forty or fifty years ago, the remains of one of his prototype airplane models were discovered in a Christchurch garage. He died in obscurity and his achievements have been clouded by the controversy over whether or not he "flew" before the fully documented Wright brother’s flights. Grid jostling aside, Pearse’s achievements might be remembered as even more remarkable in that, unlike the Wright brothers, who employed skilled engineers, and later enjoyed the luxury of government sponsorship, Pearse managed to get airborne with no technical training and absurdly scant resource. On his isolated farm at the edge of the world he relied on practical ingenuity and trial-and-error innovation to design, finance and build everything himself. It was sheer achievement against the odds: a modern day Icarus from down under who fashioned his wings not from feathers and wax, but bamboo and scrap metal.
http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/pearse.html
and then there's always the truth, perhaps
http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/culture/richard-pearse
In two letters, published in 1915 and 1928, the inventor writes of February or March 1904 as the time when he set out to solve the problem of aerial navigation. He also states that he did not achieve proper flight and did not beat the American brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright who flew on 17 December 1903.
Mike
beat the Wright Brothers to 'sustained powered flight'.
Richard Pearse
FIRST FLYER
Richard Pearse: "Mad Pearse", "Bamboo Dick", self-taught inventor, prophetic designer, trail blazing aviator and eccentric visionary. On or about 31st March 1903 a reclusive New Zealand farmer Richard Pearse climbed into a self-built monoplane and flew for about 140 metres before crashing into a gorse hedge on his Waitohi property . Even at half the distance Pearse must have felt the liberating but anxious exhilaration of flying. There is uncertainty about whether it met the definitions of sustained flight, but it came eight months before the Wright Brothers entered the record books at Kitty Hawk North Carolina on 17th December 1903.
The centenary of the achievement of the Wright Brothers was celebrated in 2003 as one of the defining moments of the Twentieth Century. The event is etched in our consciousness as an enduring symbol of imagination and technological triumph in man’s never-ending confrontation with nature. Conversely, Pearse was largely forgotten until, when forty or fifty years ago, the remains of one of his prototype airplane models were discovered in a Christchurch garage. He died in obscurity and his achievements have been clouded by the controversy over whether or not he "flew" before the fully documented Wright brother’s flights. Grid jostling aside, Pearse’s achievements might be remembered as even more remarkable in that, unlike the Wright brothers, who employed skilled engineers, and later enjoyed the luxury of government sponsorship, Pearse managed to get airborne with no technical training and absurdly scant resource. On his isolated farm at the edge of the world he relied on practical ingenuity and trial-and-error innovation to design, finance and build everything himself. It was sheer achievement against the odds: a modern day Icarus from down under who fashioned his wings not from feathers and wax, but bamboo and scrap metal.
http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/pearse.html
and then there's always the truth, perhaps
http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/culture/richard-pearse
In two letters, published in 1915 and 1928, the inventor writes of February or March 1904 as the time when he set out to solve the problem of aerial navigation. He also states that he did not achieve proper flight and did not beat the American brothers Orville and Wilbur Wright who flew on 17 December 1903.
Mike
