And A Kiwi's Accomplishments Are Still Remembered

[I. M. Esperto]

http://www.avweb.com/newswire/9_12b/complete/183689-1.html#2

AND A KIWI'S ACCOMPLISHMENTS ARE STILL REMEMBERED

I was unfamiliar with this. Comments?

[BOAC]

During a memorable hol in NZ last autumn, while driving South Island, I went past the memorial to the guy in Waitohi.

Researched a bit on return to UK to find a claim that his flight preceeded the Wright Bros. Search Google for him and you will find. Here is one to get you
going (http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/pearse.html)

[FNG]

oh noooooooooooooooooooooo! There has already been a 947 page thread about this:-

http://www.pprune.org/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=36265

Please not another one, arrrrrrrrrrrrrggggghhhhhh

[tiger burn]

BOAC, I hope on your travels in SI that you found time to visit Croyden Aircraft Co at Mandeville to see Colin Smith's de Havilland restoration facility?

Bw's
tb

[BOAC]

Sadly, Tiger, no! (Had the boss with me:eek: )

FNG - sorreee! Didn't know. I'll tiptoe away!

[HectorusRex]

From NZ Herald, 29.03.2003

Brave leap of faith in pioneer aviator

29.03.2003
By PAULA OLIVER and NZPA
Veteran aviator Jack Mehlhopt will not concede that he's nervous about climbing into the cockpit of a 1903 replica aircraft - but he is planning to wear a crash helmet.

Mr Mehlhopt, 74, is one of a team of enthusiastic aviators who this weekend celebrate the centenary of the first bumpy flying experience of New Zealand inventor Richard Pearse.

Many claim that Pearse, a South Canterbury farmer, beat the Wright brothers into aviation history and became the first to fly in March, 1903 - eight months before the Wrights' exploits at Kitty Hawk.

Witnesses say Pearse managed to get a flying contraption airborne on his family farm at Waitohi, near Temuka, for between 100m and 150m.

He landed in a 4m-high gorse hedge.

Debate has raged for decades over whether Pearse's apparently uncontrolled hops officially rated as flight, and whether they even happened in 1903.

Pearse's pioneering 140m hop could have been the most famous flight in the world, yet he died in relative obscurity in a Christchurch mental hospital.

So did he actually fly on March 31, 1903? No, say his critics, because his flight was uncontrolled. Yes, say his supporters, because it was powered flight, although uncontrolled.

He was airborne 3m or 4m above the ground for 140m until he hit the hedge.

But either way South Canterbury is proud of Pearse, and this weekend its locals have organised an airshow to pay tribute to their favourite flying son.

The spectacular show includes Royal New Zealand Air Force planes and aerobatic displays.

But the biggest event is scheduled for Monday - when an attempt will be made to recreate Pearce's flying experiment in a bamboo, cloth and metal replica of his monoplane.

The man in the pilot's seat on the Pearse family farm in Waitohi will be Mr Mehlhopt, the chairman of the South Canterbury Aviation Heritage Society.

"I don't know if this Machine will fly or not," he said.

"I'm going to use all the experience I have got to give it the best shot I can."

Mr Mehlhopt has 55 years' experience with aircraft.

With the right wind conditions there is a chance the plane will get off the ground, if only briefly, to a height of about 4m.

Mr Mehlhopt admitted to some apprehension about the attempt but voiced a strong "no" when the question of nervousness arose.

Two replicas have been made for the centenary, one by the Museum of Transport and Technology in Auckland (Motat) and another built by Timaru locals.

The two groups of enthusiasts say that even if they do not get off the ground, their two machines reflect Pearse's inventive genius.

Both groups - headed by Aucklander Geoff Rodliffe and Timaru's Mr Mehlhopt - have built replica engines but have yet to crack the problem of overheating.

Mr Rodliffe's airframe and Frank Ford's replica engine have been built in collaboration with Motat, former Air Force engineer Don Flemming, former Air Force technician Rose Bennis and a band of helpers.

The first attempt at recreating the Pearse flight will be in the Auckland aircraft fitted with a microlight engine, to demonstrate the Pearse design can fly, albeit with a modern engine.

The Motat replica was shipped to Timaru this week and will show off its ground handling and manoeuvring skills on Monday. Organisers are expecting between 10,000 and 12,000 people to attend Sunday's airshow in Timaru, and about 3000 to attend Saturday and Monday's festivities.

* The Motat replica will be on display to the public at Easter.

Visitors will be able to see it taxi-ing around an area of the Motat 2 site.

Richard Pearse - man of many inventions

29.03.2003
By GORDON OGILVIE*
Sometimes I have to feel just plain sorry for Richard Pearse.

Reserved, shy, modest and towards the end of his life almost pathologically reclusive, he would have recoiled from the hullabaloo his name has recently generated.

The notion that Pearse flew before the Wright Brothers has for years created acrimony and been a distraction from more important issues concerning this far-sighted pioneer inventor.

Pearse himself freely credited the Wright Brothers with being the first to fly, on Thursday, December 17, 1903.

His efforts are more properly described as powered take-offs, tentative flights, long-hops, lift-offs or flight attempts. Not flying.

What is there left to celebrate? Well, plenty, actually.

Pearse was very likely the third in the world to leave the ground in a powered heavier-than-air machine.

I say "very likely" because there is argument about when Pearse actually achieved that first datable tentative flight.

Of the 37 surviving witnesses who between 1958 and 1975 declared on oath that they saw Pearse experimenting with his Waitohi monoplane, several believed Pearse was trying to fly in 1903 and their evidence can be dated circumstantially.

But I'd abandon any competition with the Wright Brothers.

A much more sustainable claim to fame for Pearse lies in other contexts. He was the first in the British Empire (even if you use 1904 for your date) to achieve a powered take-off in a heavier-than-air machine.

Then there are those clever and individual petrol engines he designed and built himself.

Marvel at his 1906 aircraft patent, much closer to a modern monoplane than anything else being worked on by his contemporaries.

His second aircraft, the Utility Plane, exhibited at Auckland's Motat, embodies many novel ideas such as its "tilting engine".

Then there was his bamboo bicycle, patented in 1902, a home-built motorbike, lathe, forge, recording machine, magic viewer, harp, power generator, potato planter, topdresser, motorised disc harrows, two music boxes and a novel "sparking plug".

But largely through a geographic accident, Pearse played no part in the development of aeroplane technology and remains a forlorn footnote to aviation history.

* Gordon Ogilvie wrote The Riddle of Richard Pearse, the fourth edition of which was released this week.

[CamelPilot]

As all of this is well covered in the "Wilbur and Orville" thread I will close this one. It confuses the starlings! :confused: