Happy Richard Pearse Day (for all you Americans!)

[Colonel Blink]

Seeing as it is now 100 years since the first powered flight perhaps we should rename the 31st march as Richard Pearse day.

Look here (http://www.nzedge.com/heroes/pearse.html) or here (http://www.auckland-airport.co.nz/pearse.html) or even here (The US claim tehy were first - ha!) (http://chrisbrady.itgo.com/pearse/pearse.htm)

Amongst other things pearse used tricycle gear (not common for many years, yet the mainstay of air transport) and the prop 'pulled' rather than pushing like the Wrights (and also served to cool the motor just like most piston aircraft do!)

PS expect this'll be moved to the right forum ( so sorry Danny)

[goeasy]

I dont think it will be moved.

A subject that makes me choke evry time I hear some reference to the Wright Brothers being first. First in their world only maybe!

Always a great discussion. One I have never seen on Pprune before.

[ZK-NSJ]

a guy i work with (hes 75ish) lived down the road from richard pearse when he was a kid, he was telling me all the kids used to walk past his place accross the otrher side of the road, caus everyone thought he was mad

[Airbubba]

No need to have such an inferiority complex about aviation, the Brits have made some contributions...

[jungly]

Nice one Airbubba!

You are of course aware that New Zealand is not Britain?

"You know youre a redneck when your father walks you to school - 'cos youre in the same grad!"

[Anti Skid On]

Well said Jungly, only 12000NM away from the UK! The bit about the Smithsonian Institute being 'gifted' the Wright Bros. aircraft, so long as they always maintained it was the first powered aircraft sounds very feasible.

[Sir George Cayley]

...where are you?

There's a Kiwi first thread running here - we need you urgently!

Sir George Cayley

The air is a navigable ocean that laps at everyones door

[Iron City]

Hail Richard Pearse Day!

Should go right up there with Mahlon Loomis, inventor of Radio (that's same as wireless for yall that drive on the wrong side of the road)


The provisos and quid pro quos in the gift of the Flyer to the Smithsonian is because a fellow named Samuel Langley ( while director of the Smithsonian) used a bunch of appropriated Government money to try to build an airplane that he couldn't get to fly (but it had a really good engine) then after the Wrights flew and could prove it the Smithsonian powers that be didn't believe it (imagine that) and then had Glen Curtis rebuild the failed machine (with a few little tweaks, like airfoil wings not flat slabs) fly it and claim Langley (and the Smithsonian) would have been first if the catapult hadn't caught on the airplane or the dog hadn't ate Langley's calculations or a bunch of other "ifs".

You, like the Wrights, would be paranoid too if everyone was out to get you.

[Airbubba]

>>"You know youre a redneck when your father walks you to school - 'cos youre in the same grad!"

Ok, guilty as charged, my geography is up to your spelling...

Let's make a deal, you admit the Wrights got it right and we'll give Peter Arnett back to the Kiwi's.

[outofsynch]

That the Americans accepted that the Wright brothers were the second successful attempt at powered flight, and that Richard Pearse should get the international recognition he deserves for being the FIRST.

I find it hard to beleive that this FACT hasnt become more widely known and accepted. :* :cool: :O

[reynoldsno1]

caus everyone thought he was mad

Alas, poor Richard died in 1953 whilst a resident of a lunatic asylum...
now, if the Brits hadn't introduced gorse to New Zealand, Richard wouldn't have crashed into it...right?

[unwiseowl]

It's nice that the Kiwis can claim to be first: I think NZ is a nation which tends to produce fine aviators, like Fred Hoinville for example. (Though you have to admit that the Wrights built the best machine.)

[Colonel Blink]

Consider the differences -

Pearse tricycle gear, Wrights skids (hence able to taxi!)

Pearse monoplane, Wrights biplane

Pearse normal prop, Wrights a pusher

Pearse pilot sits in a seat, Wrights pilot lies on front!

So explain why the Wrights was better? Pearse flew further using a smaller engine, made by him in a shed. He had no formal engineering training and no support from anyone (unlike the Wrights). Check the sites on the first message. Pearse had designs for STOL aircraft but the paptents took 6 years, by which time Sikorsky had beaten him.

If pearse had been an American he would have been a hero.

[18-Wheeler]

(I'm here George! I had to work yesterday)

My page on Pearse (http://www.billzilla.org/pearce.htm).
If there's some doubt about his flight on the 31-3rd, then there is no doubt about the 1,000 yard odd flight (two turns, mostly out of ground effect) in May 1903.

[progolfer]

There is a book called "The Riddle of Richard Pearse" which is a good read on the subject.

[unwiseowl]

Richard Pearse freely admitted that the Wrights bulit a better machine. Pearse was brilliant but the Wrights were experienced engineers with substantial resources.

[Kermit 180]

In a book I got for Christmas "100 Years of Aviation" they forgot to make any mention of Pearse whatsoever. :confused: Then again, the book was put out by the Smithsonian Institute (USA) and IWM (UK), so it probably stands to reason. At least they remembered to mention Sir Charles Kingsford Smith and the Southen Cross.

Kerms

[LeadSled]

Folks,

There has been quite a bit about Pearse this year, but even he did not claim he flew before the Wright Bros., shouldn’t that be good enough.

If you really wanted to be mean spirited about it, you could say that the first Wright Flyer was just a Hargreaves Box Kite with an engine, and the Smithsonian gives credit for the fact that the Wright Bros. were aware of and benefited directly from Hargreaves work, and that of quite a number of others.

After all, there had been quite a few powered flights of “model” aircraft with small steam engines etc.

The Wright Bros. put all the bits together first, in the year of ’03, let’s give them the credit that is their due.

Nobody, but nobody, has ever documented a powered flight in an aircraft with a pilot before the Wright Bros.

I continue to be amazed at the Pearse Supported Club, when the definitive answer was from Pearse himself. He did not claim the first flight.

Tootle pip!!

[tony draper]

The reason the Wright Flyer was in London and not the Smithsonian for years is that the Wright family insisted that no other aviation pioneers were mentioned on the information that accompanied the display of the Wright Flyer.
The Smithsonian had to agree to a degree of censorship imposed by the Wrights before it was returned and put on display.
Once something is in the history books it has a huge amount of inertia, it cannot be changed.
The first house in the world lit by electric light bulb sits about quarter of a mile from me, it enjoyed light from carbon filiment bulbs for 18 months before Edison came up with the idea.
Lots of people were working on a practical electric light source, Joseph Swan from my home town was the first to achieve it, but it does not say that in the history books.

[18-Wheeler]

Leadsled, the many people that watched him fly say different. His early flights were about as well controlled as the Wright brother's ones.
The most impressive one being in May where he flew about 1,000 yards, mostly out of ground effect and including two turns.

Toodle pip to you, too.