BlueWolf
30th Mar 2003, 12:23
From the New Zealand Herald, March 18th. The author is a former RNZAF A-4 Skyhawk pilot, and a medical doctor. He flew FAC missions in Vietnam and is a respected defence and aviation commentator. He is also, understandably, a good bloke.
Aviator's design stands test of time
18.03.2003
By ROSS EWING*
Much of the debate surrounding Richard Pearse centres on whether he beat the Wright brothers into the air to become the first powered-aeroplane flyer of all time. Exhaustive research shows the answer remains unclear and will probably remain so.
It might be more fruitful to ask where Pearse stands today as an early inventor of the aeroplane? Was he on the right track? Have his design ideas lasted to the present day? Have those of the Wright brothers?
There is little doubt that at the turn of last century Pearse was at the forefront of the design of controlled, powered aeroplanes.
He grew up as part of a large farming family at Waitohi, South Canterbury, and was not an orthodox thinker but inventive by nature. He started experimenting with bicycles, but it was aviation that caught his fancy.
He became determined to be one of the first, if not the first, to build and fly an aircraft.
The challenge meant hours and hours of research, largely on his own, in which he formed a plan to build from scratch a machine that would fly and be controllable once in the air. It would be powered by a suitable engine that he would also plan and build.
About that time, 1902-1904, the Wright brothers in America had been experimenting along the same lines. Pearse developed and tested his first machine at Waitohi about the time the Wrights were experimenting near the village of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. But the principles he pursued with both his flying machine and his engine were different from those of the Wrights.
The engine Pearse designed was a two-cylinder horizontally opposed two-stroke engine. His propeller drive was direct from engine to propeller, and his undercarriage consisted of a tricycle of three wheels each with air-inflated tyres, the nose wheel of which was steerable.
His method of lateral control was by wingtip spoiler/flap, and his method of controlling the craft's up-down pitch was by an elevator that was mounted at the rear.
The Wright brothers, on the other hand, used a self-made four-cylinder, in-line engine. They used a 20m wooden launching track and catapult device to get their craft moving and in a straight line, and they used chain drives from the engine to power two separate propellers.
They used skids (no wheels) attached below their plane for takeoff and landing, and their method of lateral-roll control was by wing warping. Their method of pitch control was also to use an elevator but to mount it out in front of the wings.
What is remarkable is that the features designed by Pearse, such as his direct drive from engine-to-propeller, his tricycle and steerable-nosewheel undercarriage with air-inflated tyres, his method of lateral control by wingtip spoiler/flap, and his rear-mounted elevator flight controls, have lived on to the present day.
What is also significant is that many of the Wrights' aeroplane features - including the catapult and launching track, the propeller drives, the skids below, the wing-warping method of roll control and the use of a forward-mounted elevator control - were to quickly disappear from aircraft design.
Compared with the Pearse machine and with modern light-aircraft design, the Wright Flyer flew "backwards".
However, the Pearse machine had significant design flaws, mainly about the wing. It was not a natural flying contraption.
His design was not long enough to allow the control services to have a sufficiently strong effect. The controlling devices were not powerful and, in hindsight, if the tail of the machine had been a little further back, it would have stood a much better chance of more effective control.
It is evident that Pearse made several cursory hops in his machine, although the exact timing of these has been hard to pin down. The strongest evidence for his most notable flight points to March 31, 1903 - about eight months before the Wright brothers.
Leading New Zealand aviation historians, including Gordon Ogilvie, Geoffrey Rodliffe and the late Ross Macpherson, agree he may have flown then. If this was so, he did beat the Wright brothers.
Regardless, Pearse has never fully received any credit for that possible flight, and many have rated him only a poor and doubtful second to the Wright brothers.
As to who invented the aeroplane, it is very clear that many of Pearse's design features are seen today in conventional aeroplanes.
That fact makes Pearse stand apart from other early designers, the Wright brothers in particular.
It is high time for New Zealand to begin openly remembering Pearse.
His name deserves elevation and to live on, not as that of the man who beat the Wrights but as that of an undoubted world pioneer - unlike the Wrights - in aeroplane design.
* Ross Ewing, of Christchurch, is an aviation commentator. A pageant celebrating Richard Pearse will be held at Timaru at the end of the month.
Aviator's design stands test of time
18.03.2003
By ROSS EWING*
Much of the debate surrounding Richard Pearse centres on whether he beat the Wright brothers into the air to become the first powered-aeroplane flyer of all time. Exhaustive research shows the answer remains unclear and will probably remain so.
It might be more fruitful to ask where Pearse stands today as an early inventor of the aeroplane? Was he on the right track? Have his design ideas lasted to the present day? Have those of the Wright brothers?
There is little doubt that at the turn of last century Pearse was at the forefront of the design of controlled, powered aeroplanes.
He grew up as part of a large farming family at Waitohi, South Canterbury, and was not an orthodox thinker but inventive by nature. He started experimenting with bicycles, but it was aviation that caught his fancy.
He became determined to be one of the first, if not the first, to build and fly an aircraft.
The challenge meant hours and hours of research, largely on his own, in which he formed a plan to build from scratch a machine that would fly and be controllable once in the air. It would be powered by a suitable engine that he would also plan and build.
About that time, 1902-1904, the Wright brothers in America had been experimenting along the same lines. Pearse developed and tested his first machine at Waitohi about the time the Wrights were experimenting near the village of Kitty Hawk, North Carolina. But the principles he pursued with both his flying machine and his engine were different from those of the Wrights.
The engine Pearse designed was a two-cylinder horizontally opposed two-stroke engine. His propeller drive was direct from engine to propeller, and his undercarriage consisted of a tricycle of three wheels each with air-inflated tyres, the nose wheel of which was steerable.
His method of lateral control was by wingtip spoiler/flap, and his method of controlling the craft's up-down pitch was by an elevator that was mounted at the rear.
The Wright brothers, on the other hand, used a self-made four-cylinder, in-line engine. They used a 20m wooden launching track and catapult device to get their craft moving and in a straight line, and they used chain drives from the engine to power two separate propellers.
They used skids (no wheels) attached below their plane for takeoff and landing, and their method of lateral-roll control was by wing warping. Their method of pitch control was also to use an elevator but to mount it out in front of the wings.
What is remarkable is that the features designed by Pearse, such as his direct drive from engine-to-propeller, his tricycle and steerable-nosewheel undercarriage with air-inflated tyres, his method of lateral control by wingtip spoiler/flap, and his rear-mounted elevator flight controls, have lived on to the present day.
What is also significant is that many of the Wrights' aeroplane features - including the catapult and launching track, the propeller drives, the skids below, the wing-warping method of roll control and the use of a forward-mounted elevator control - were to quickly disappear from aircraft design.
Compared with the Pearse machine and with modern light-aircraft design, the Wright Flyer flew "backwards".
However, the Pearse machine had significant design flaws, mainly about the wing. It was not a natural flying contraption.
His design was not long enough to allow the control services to have a sufficiently strong effect. The controlling devices were not powerful and, in hindsight, if the tail of the machine had been a little further back, it would have stood a much better chance of more effective control.
It is evident that Pearse made several cursory hops in his machine, although the exact timing of these has been hard to pin down. The strongest evidence for his most notable flight points to March 31, 1903 - about eight months before the Wright brothers.
Leading New Zealand aviation historians, including Gordon Ogilvie, Geoffrey Rodliffe and the late Ross Macpherson, agree he may have flown then. If this was so, he did beat the Wright brothers.
Regardless, Pearse has never fully received any credit for that possible flight, and many have rated him only a poor and doubtful second to the Wright brothers.
As to who invented the aeroplane, it is very clear that many of Pearse's design features are seen today in conventional aeroplanes.
That fact makes Pearse stand apart from other early designers, the Wright brothers in particular.
It is high time for New Zealand to begin openly remembering Pearse.
His name deserves elevation and to live on, not as that of the man who beat the Wrights but as that of an undoubted world pioneer - unlike the Wrights - in aeroplane design.
* Ross Ewing, of Christchurch, is an aviation commentator. A pageant celebrating Richard Pearse will be held at Timaru at the end of the month.