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Post by Dave Homewood on May 13, 2012 8:46:08 GMT 12
It is interesting for a New Zealand aviation forum how few members care enough about this topic to join in with their thoughts. I guess none of it matters in the end, we can fly today and who did what, when is purely academic.
Apart from eyewitness accounts taken decades later, there is no other evidence one way or another other than what Pearse himself told the newspaper. The way I read that article that Errol discovered, I also drew the conclusion he did nothing before 1904. But as we know newspapers are ambiguious, they misquote people, and cannot alway be entirely relied on - just like 50+ year old eye witness statements. Who knows what really happened? Who cares? Not many people here by the looks of it, sadly.
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Post by phil82 on May 13, 2012 11:00:57 GMT 12
It is interesting for a New Zealand aviation forum how few members care enough about this topic to join in with their thoughts. I guess none of it matters in the end, we can fly today and who did what, when is purely academic. It would matter if it were true, but as that aspect can't be proven, then I believe it is purely academic! I have had an interest in things Military, but especially aviation, since my early teens, over 60 years ago and I've spent a huge number of those subsequent years in and around aircraft and the people that fly them. So there isn't a lot I take on speculation or rumour. Show me the facts, and I'll accept just about anything, but the cororally of that is that academics are not , necessarily, the best people to disseminate fact from fiction because they begin to assume that which they don't really know, and accept it as fact. The elevation of Richard Pearce to that of first time aviator is more folk-lore than fact; it cannot be shown that he achieved controlled flight though perhaps if the Wright Brothers hadn't then more people may have taken heed of what he did do!
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Post by errolmartyn on May 13, 2012 15:02:09 GMT 12
NZ AVIATOR PIONEER WAS THE REAL DEAL: Er, no he wasn’t!
EVAN GARDINER presents a family perspective on the controversy over Richard Pearse's pioneering efforts to fly. This is Gardiner’s problem, of course, in that he writes from a family perspective and not one detached from family loyalties.
I am standing up for Richard Pearse’s family. I am standing up for my great uncle Richard Pearse, my grandfather Warne Pearse and my great aunts Florrie and Ruth. Apart from Richard who died at an earlier age, my great aunts and grandfather were a valued part of my extended family when I was growing up and I was always aware of their sense of fair play and absolute integrity. Well naturally most of us believe in fair play and absolute integrity, but often our memories play us false and loyalty to one cause can blind us to another.
I’ve also been closely involved in the whole Richard Pearse saga since the early 1960s. Whether one has been close to it for 50 years or 5 days is irrelevant, if one has a closed mind.
Over the years there have been many contenders come and go, to try and dis-establish Pearse’s position in NZ history. Errol Martyn is the latest contender. I am an aviation historian, not a ‘contender’, as you quaintly put it.
Richard Pearse’s achievements in the early 1900s were principally established through the efforts of a number of researchers tracking down and independently interviewing the many people who witnessed some aspects of those achievements. Surprisingly, these same ‘researchers’ also failed to locate the longest (one and a half columns!) and most significant contemporaneous report about Richard Pearse and his first aeroplane.
Now Martyn is attempting to construct an argument, No, I am not arguing but simply recording history based upon the available evidence.
with the backing of an overseas ‘expert’ I am not backed by an overseas ‘expert’, as you put it, but have as a matter of course discussed the Pearse case with many aviation historians far and wide.
that my relatives and all those other witnesses did not accurately remember what happened in their lives at that time. One the one hand your relative Richard Pearse stated quite clearly in 1909 that he had done nothing practical regarding an aeroplane prior to 1904. On the other you claim that other witnesses remember half a century later that he had. So which is it to be, Mr Gardiner? You can’t have it both ways.
Therefore, according to Martyn, all this witness evidence needs to be discarded as irrelevant when recording Pearse’s place in aviation history. Clearly you have still not troubled yourself to properly read the chapter in my book. I made no such statement or observation.
There is nothing new about Martyn’s argument. As stated above, I am not presenting an argument, just a history record based on evidence.
Or the fact that common sense will continue to show that we can all recall a number of special events and people we have known and to hold those memories for ever. Not commonsense but provable nonsense.
What is new though, is a recently discovered article from the Timaru Post of 17th November 1909. (Timaru Herald 24/04/12) Incidentally, not discovered by the Timaru Herald, as it’s lazy reporter claimed to have done, but thanks to the research undertaken by me and another researcher. The TH then simply had to go to the paper and look up the item.
It provides a very interesting and intimate insight into Richard Pearse. Even more importantly, it also clearly establishes the advanced stage of development of Pearse’s aircraft at the time of the interview. In an advanced state of development but not of an advanced design.
When Pearse started up his aircraft engine to demonstrate its performance, to use this reporter’s wonderfully descriptive prose: “The engine was set going, the propeller was given a twist or two, and with a suddenness wholly unprovided for, I was almost blown off my feet by a veritable hurricane of wind. The propeller blades spun round until they appeared as mere shadows in the daylight; the machine heaved and rattled like a living thing, seeming every moment as if it would spring from the earth and disappear.” Further in the interview, Pearse describes his recent attempt at controlled flight, “I have had several tests. Last week's was my most successful one, the machine rising readily.” Misleadingly, Gardiner omits the rest of the sentence. In full it reads: I have had several tests. Last week’s [c.8-13th November] was my most successful one, the machine rising readily, but tilting gradually at the rear owing to the rudder [elevator?] in that position disturbing the equilibrium.” In other words he got off the ground but was struggling to control it.
It should be obvious to the reader that the engine demonstration and the recent ‘flight’ described by Pearse could only have been possible after many years of prior development of his engine and aircraft. As recorded in my chapter, his engine development dated from early 1904. When he commenced construction of the airframe has not been established. But it was the engine(s) that occupied him the most, according to Pearse’s own account.
In The Press 28th April, an article headed “Pearse's first attempt to fly 'was in 1909” Errol Martyn sought to persuade us that Pearse did nothing of interest to aviation historians prior to 1904 For the record, the Press article was not by me but by Max Lambert. Secondly I do not need to ‘persuade’ anybody that Pearse did nothing of interest to aviation historians prior to 1904 – Pearse himself tells us that this was the case (in 1909, 1915, 1928 and 1945).
and that “Pearse didn't even attempt flight until six years after the Wrights”. Martyn’s premise is based on his interpretation of that part of a letter Richard Pearse wrote to Dunedin's Evening Star on May 10, 1915. Again, Gardiner has failed to properly read my Pearse chapter, either that or he has peculiar interpretation of ‘premise’.
The selected quote that Martyn chose for The Press article was: (Pearse) “started to solve the problem of flight about March 1904” and added, he had "worked at the problem for about 5 1/2 years"’. As already stated, I did not write the article and did not select any quotes for it.
The problem with this quote is that it has been taken out of context with the rest of Pearse’s letter and has enabled Martyn to present his case and subsequent article on a completely false premise. Wrong again. Notwithstanding that it was not my article, Gardiner misrepresents my account.
Reproduced here is the actual part of Pearse’s letter that retained the context that Pearse intended. “After Langley’s failure in 1903 I was still of the opinion that aerial navigation was possible, and I started out to solve the problem about March, 1904. The Wrights started at about the same time. Pearse was wrong here, of course, for the Wright brothers had set out on the task experiments much earlier, in 1899.
Langley was subsidised to the extent of ten thousand Pounds by the American Government, and after his failure aerial navigation was thought to be an impossibility; in fact ‘flying machines that wouldn’t fly,’ was a standing joke with the Newspapers.” This letter has been widely available for many years now. It was reprinted in Ogilivie’s book ‘The Riddle Of Richard Pearse’ in 1973. This quote from Pearse: “I started out to solve the problem about March 1904”, followed by this important next line that Martyn chose not to include, “The Wrights started at about the same time.”, See above.
should have challenged Martyn to at least research what was ‘the problem’ that both these ‘aviators’ were still experiencing in early 1904. As in any techology or science, the development of aviation is a continuous line of ‘problem’ solving, it was not simply confined to ‘early 1904.’ The Wrights by this time, of course, were well down the track to solving the most fundamental problems of control, whereas Pearse was only just setting out to do so.
The ‘problem’ of course was, lack of CONTROL. Just one of the problems. Pearse never got to grips with control but it was the problem of power that appears to have consumed the greatest part of his time.
Unlike Pearse, the Wrights made it very easy for future aviation historians when their book was published by Dover Publications N.Y. “How We Invented The Aeroplane. An Illustrated History” by Orville Wright. In the appendix “The Wright Brothers’ Aeroplane” by Orville and Wilbur Wright, they say “We had not been flying long in 1904 before we found that the problem of equilibrium had not yet been entirely solved. Sometimes, in making a circle, the machine would turn over sideways despite anything the operator could do, although, under the same conditions in ordinary straight flight, it could be righted in an instant. The causes of these troubles – too technical for explanation here – were not entirely overcome until the end of September, 1905. The flights then rapidly increased in length, till experiments were discontinued after the 5th October, on account of the number of people attracted to the field.”
This shows that the Wrights were still having issues with lack of CONTROL, until late in 1905, several years after the Wrights first recorded flight in 1903. Not ‘several years’, but less than two (Dec 1903 to Sep 1905 = 22 months).
Important to note also, that not only did these pioneer aviators need to construct an aircraft that could be controlled, they also had to learn the skills, without any prior training or practise, to fly that aircraft in a CONTROLLED way.
In taking Pearse’s quote out of context, Martyn thinks he can persuade us to a rewrite of NZ’s early aviation history. Not so. As stated above, I did not quote out of context. I have not rewritten aviation history, simply sought out the evidence and recorded it as found.
As previously mentioned in my opening lines, he is even less successful in his assertion that all eye witnesses testimony is irrelevant. Please note that the correct word is unreliable, not (entirely) irrelevant. Their most significant weakness in the Pearse case is that especially when recorded so long after the event remembered eyewitness accounts cannot be relied upon on their own for dating purposes.
Gordon Ogilvie’s book ‘The Riddle Of Richard Pearse’ records no less than 48 eye witness accounts that were able to personally testify to witnessing Pearse's aircraft development and subsequent attempts at powered flight over the period 1902 to 1904. You have not properly read Ogilvie’s book either, as only a small proportion of the witnesses he mentions actually ‘remember’ 1902 or 1903 ‘aircraft development’ or flight attempts, or even for 1904. The majority ‘believed’ or ‘remembered’ a later date or were unable to give a date at all.
A number of these witnesses have sworn an affidavit to their testimony. A few were able to date their testimony very accurately because they had left the area after 1904. As Pearse himself said he did nothing practical until 1904, thus confirming my above observation.
You can say what you like about the ‘sins of memory’ – misattribution, suggestibility, bias, etc. But 48 is too high a number for all to be misled, misinformed, over-imaginative, senile, lying or stupid. Of particular relevance is that Martyn has chosen to devalue this witness testimony even further by claiming that all these witnesses are ‘unnamed’. (The Press 28th April) This is completely untrue and all these witnesses are named and recorded in this book. I did not say they were unnamed. That was an error in Max Lambert’s article. Had you paid attention to what I say in my book you would have found that I said that “Unhelpfully, these witnesses are seldom formally identified. Full names are usually lacking and a date of birth or age rarely given.”
To be clear about my own position, it has never mattered too much to me if Pearse’s first ‘flight’ was celebrated sometime in 1902, 1903 or 1904. Presumably you really mean 1909 (when he made his first known take off attempt)?
To my mind, as a pilot and builder of several aircraft, the achievement of the first controlled flight rightly belongs to the Wrights. Quite right!
And despite Martyn’s often repeated statement to the contrary, Please do provide evidence of where I make these ‘repeated’ statements. They are entirely new to me!
this is the view consistently held by all the Richard Pearse supporters that I know, and has been for many years. However, we staunchly believe Richard Pearse’s experiments into trying to achieve controlled flight should retain its pre-eminent position in any record of NZ’s aviation history. Mr Gardiner clearly misunderstands the meaning of the word pre-eminent.
And finally, a question to Errol Martyn. If Richard Pearse’s contribution to NZ aviation history over the period 1900 to 1910 is now not worthy of recognition – who is going to replace him? Well he cannot be ‘replaced’ for the years 1900-1903 for a start, can he, given Pearse’s own words confirming he had done nothing practical during that period? My history does not seek to ‘replace’ anyone, only to record as accurately as possible who did what, when, where and how – as supported by the evidence.
Errol
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Post by kiwithrottlejockey on May 13, 2012 15:21:21 GMT 12
Well, Errol....I just purchased a copy of your book this morning from Capital Books in Wellington.
I look foward to reading it when I get time (I've got a backlog of books to read at the moment).
I notice it has Volume I on the cover. So presumably there will be a Volume II?
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Post by errolmartyn on May 13, 2012 15:51:11 GMT 12
Well, Errol....I just purchased a copy of your book this morning from Capital Books in Wellington. I look foward to reading it when I get time (I've got a backlog of books to read at the moment). I notice it has Volume I on the cover. So presumably there will be a Volume II? KTJ, A Passion for Flight – New Zealand aviation before the Great War Volume Two: aero clubs, aeroplanes, aviators and aeronauts 1910-1914 (to be pub in early 2013) Volume Three: The Joe Hammond story and military beginnings 1910-1914 (to be pub in late 2013) Main body text for each already 85% complete. You'd better get on with clearing that reading backlog! Errol
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Post by chinapilot on May 13, 2012 17:23:05 GMT 12
Dave...Many threads get no response/interest here unless it's 'Spitfire' or 'warbird' related so chastisement for lack of interest in this obscure part of our aviation history is a little unfair ...most of us,except dedicated researchers like Errol, would know very little about it apart from the 'folklore'. Ian
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Post by mumbles on May 13, 2012 22:43:14 GMT 12
Dave...Many threads get no response/interest here unless it's 'Spitfire' or 'warbird' related so chastisement for lack of interest in this obscure part of our aviation history is a little unfair ...most of us,except dedicated researchers like Errol, would know very little about it apart from the 'folklore'. Ian I don't think it's that no-one cares, it's just for many this would be a non-issue, with an opinion decided years ago, and nothing to discuss or to add.
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Post by errolmartyn on May 14, 2012 13:20:38 GMT 12
Copy of a letter of mine published in the Press on 1 May 2012:
Myth won't die
Gordon Ogilvie, in his response to Max Lambert’s article about the Pearse chapter in my book – A Passion For Flight - states that much of my coverage is “flogging a dead horse” (April 28). The horse may well have died, in Ogilvie’s opinion, but many others have long been reluctant to let it lie down. For instance, although Pearse in his 1915 letter to the Dunedin Evening Star said that he only "started out to solve the problem" in 1904, some have argued that this meant he had already built his aeroplane, made some hops or flights in 1902 or 1903, but was not yet satisfied with it. Ogilvie in his biography of the inventor, though not claiming that Pearse flew, was of the view that there was "a more than healthy chance that 31 March 1903 was the date" he "first got aloft". It is correct that following his inspection of material at the Air Force Museum, he retracted his statement, in The Press of November 26 last, but this was hardly “well before” my book appeared, the manuscript of which was completed a month or so earlier. The same material had been drawn to my attention several years earlier by another researcher. I’d always assumed that Ogilvie also knew of it long ago, but was informed by him that it was only recently drawn to his attention by museum staff. The Timaru Post article of 1909, which appears to have escaped the notice of other researchers, not only provides us with new personal information about Pearse but, in his own words, the categorical statement that he did “not attempt anything practical with the idea until, in 1904.” “Nothing practical” can only mean that it was quite impossible for the inventor to have been airborne in any shape or form prior to the Wright brothers historic flights of December 17, 1903.
Errol
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Post by errolmartyn on May 14, 2012 13:25:10 GMT 12
Editorial from The Press, 1 May 2012:
Great Inspiration
At last the riddle of Richard Pearse seems to have been answered. After the best part of half a century of speculation and research by many, a Christchurch writer has produced convincing evidence that Pearse was not the first to fly.
The documentation that Errol Martyn has discovered in articles from The Press, The Timaru Post, The Tuapeka Times and Dunedin's Evening Star is convincing because it has Pearse almost plainly saying that he did not get off the ground until five and a half years after the Wright brothers' 1903 flight, and has accounts of Pearse's attempt to imitate the Americans, in 1909.
Already controversy has arisen because of Martyn's dismissal of two of the most assiduous Pearse scholars, Gordon Ogilvie and Geoff Rodliffe, who compiled much of the information we have about the inventor but who were unable to answer definitively the core question of whether he got off the ground in controlled flight. The dispute is unfortunate in that both men have compiled information about Pearse that will stand the test of time and may have been lost were it not for their efforts. Ogilvie was meticulous in not claiming that the first controlled flight occurred in New Zealand.
Neither was their failure to find the articles – that Martyn has now so spectacularly brought to light – a failure of scholarship. Martyn presumably is the first Pearse researcher to use Papers Past, the still developing website. It allows the use of a search engine to troll through millions of pages of New Zealand papers, many now no longer printed. Few of them were indexed, which meant it was often a hit-and-miss business when searching for specific information. Now, the search engine of Papers Past makes such investigations fast and easy.
Martyn's use of the website has not only convincingly answered the main question about Pearse's achievement but has removed a blot on The Press's reputation. Previously, it was thought the paper had not reported on the newsworthy Pearse, but we now know it covered his preparations to get into the air.
In aviation terms, of course, the more important issue of reputation is that of Pearse's.
Martyn is fair in saying he was ingenious, persistent and resourceful but not a genius, and that his work did not influence others or advance aviation. Pearse, however, has more to him than that.
He represents in fine form that legendary New Zealand type, the tinkering inventor. Often working alone, they have featured since the early days, sometimes emerging from their backyard sheds with useful inventions but always persisting with their visions of things new or improved. Thus we have the wire strainer, the thermet, the colonial oven, the tranquilising rifle, the child-proof container – small things but useful. The same tradition has produced more complicated things, like the jet boat, the jet pack and the Baillie bridge. Even Rutherford's brilliant experimentation has something of the spirit of a Nelson farmboy making things in the family forge.
Ad Feedback Today the tinkering has become vital to New Zealand's continued prosperity as it seeks to use smart science to transform itself into an exporter of technology. Merino wool is spun into a premium fibre, for instance, and Canterbury University research into quake-proof foundations is world-leading. Research and development, all this is called, and Richard Pearse was one of its inspiring founders.
Errol
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Post by errolmartyn on May 14, 2012 13:33:41 GMT 12
Letter of mine published in the The Press on 2 May correcting an assumption made in its editorial of 1 May:
Your editorial in Tuesday's paper wrongly suggests in researching Richard Pearse that, unlike previous researchers, I had the advantage of access to the Papers Past online newspapers. Gordon Ogilvie has also emailed me along similar lines. While I have made extensive use of that resource for the book overall, I have also been searching tens of thousands of newspaper pages the old-fashioned way, at various libraries, here and overseas, since the early 1970s. Various issues of 1909-1910 of The Geraldine Guardian, Temuka Herald, Timaru Herald, and Timaru Post were examined for the Pearse chapter in this manner – none being online. The Press came online in February this year, and long after the chapter was completed. A 57-word item in Tuapeka Times was the only online contribution. I was led to these papers in part because of a December 1909 Otago Witness item that I uncovered in 1973 and had then copied to Ogilvie, in whose various editions of his book it appears as an appendix. It was while working on my latest book that another researcher and I took it upon ourselves to make a more thorough check of other papers of the period in case something had been missed by others. This was how the 3000-word Timaru Post article of November 17, 1909, and the other reports came to light.
Errol
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Post by Dave Homewood on May 14, 2012 15:36:51 GMT 12
Quoting the Press's editorial: "The same tradition has produced more complicated things, like the jet boat, the jet pack and the Baillie bridge." I found by searching Papers Past that the jet boat was around in the 1800's long before Bill Hamilton came along. It's a myth that he invented it. Perhaps he refined it, but not invented. i posted this here almosty a year ago: rnzaf.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=general&action=display&thread=13729Also the jet pack is surely not a New Zealand invention. And a Baillie bridge? Is that something different from the well known Bailey Bridge, as invented by Donald Bailey, a British civil servant?
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Post by errolmartyn on May 14, 2012 15:47:04 GMT 12
Letter that appeared in The Press of 1 May 2012:
They saw him fly
Errol Martyn is a late-comer in a long line of people determined, in my opinion, to discredit Richard Pearse (April 28). Martyn does so under the umbrella of a respectable historian, but I suspect that the controversy he is flogging is for self-promotion of his book, A Passion for Flight. In the last three weeks Martyn has had an interview on TV3, commented on a Pearse article in The Timaru Herald- and now has a further interview in The Press. Anyone with an open mind will read Gordon Ogilvie's book The Riddle of Richard Pearse and accept the dozens of eye-witness accounts that testify to witnessing Richard's aircraft development and subsequent attempts at controlled flight prior to 1904. A number of these witnesses have sworn affidavits to their testimony. CUSHLA MURPHY RD2 Rangiora
Errol
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Post by errolmartyn on May 14, 2012 16:03:02 GMT 12
Letter that appeared in The Press on 2 May 2012:
Witnesses unreliable
Cushla Murphy writes that "anyone with an open mind" will accept as proof that Richard Pearse flew in 1903, the dozens of eye-witness accounts asserting, some of them in sworn affidavits, that they were present when he did so (May 1). I suggest that she, and those sharing her faith in the memories of those swearing as to when Pearse attempted to fly, read Errol Martyn's account of Pearse's valiant attempts to become the first New Zealander to fly, before accusing Martyn of flogging a controversy in order to boost sales of his book. Should Murphy and others take the trouble to do this, they will find, inter alia, a salutary warning, quoted from an expert on memory, about the transience and unreliability of "recollections of where and when an event occurred" and clear evidence drawn from newspaper reports of the time that 1909 was indeed the year in which Pearse made his attempt to fly. They will also learn that there was no way in which he could have done so successfully, since he failed to understand that. in order to achieve the necessary lift, the wings of his machine had to incorporate camber. What he built, and attempted to fly, was in essence a powered kite. DAVID GUNBY Ilam
Errol
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Post by errolmartyn on May 14, 2012 16:16:36 GMT 12
Letter that appeared in The Press on 3 May 2012:
Still a riddle
I congratulate The Press on its fair-minded editorial on Richard Pearse (May 1). However, you may be a little optimistic in suggesting the riddle is now solved. A riddle is an enigma, a puzzle, a' problem - or series of problems. When my biography was named, it was meant to reflect a range of 'unsolved difficulties, not only those relating to the timing and nature of Pearse's flight attempts. There were other unresolved issues as well. What, in a pioneering horse-and-buggy environment, triggered Pearse's strange passion for flight? How close did the drawing accompanying Pearse's "flying machine" patent of 1906-07 resemble the earliest version of his first aircraft? Why did he suddenly leave Waitohi in 1911 for an even less suitable farm near Milton? Where was his first aircraft dumped after he left Milton? ' How did Pearse manage to work on his Woolston convertiplane for a decade without any of Christchurch's three newspapers, so it seems, taking any notice? Errol Martyn in his new aviation history creates a further problem. How can one dismiss convincingly, without any attempt to investigate them, datable eyewitness accounts of Pearse experimenting with his novel engines and aircraft between 1904 and 1909?' To rely exclusively on 1909-10 newspaper reports has its own limitations, as the later Woolston silence shows. However, it is interesting to note, in Errol Martyn's new history, a Timaru Post report from January 31, 1910, to the effect that Pearse had made "a number of successful flights of 200,300 and 400 yards" and that he had not been prepared to demonstrate his machine at a New Year's gathering because it could not yet "fly a distance of at least one mile". His later letters show that he did not regard these efforts as properly controlled and sustained "flights". In many respects Pearse was his own toughest critic. GORDON OGILVIE Cashmere
Errol
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Post by errolmartyn on May 14, 2012 16:23:24 GMT 12
Letter in the Press on 4 May 2012:
Historians seduced
The real riddle of Richard Pearse that Gordon Ogilvie and others should solve is how so many historians managed to be seduced for so long into promoting a legend as reality. Gordon crafted a fine fair-minded book on the subject with fairness many of us enjoyed. Yet even it quoted Pearse as maintaining in later years that he had never achieved powered flight. The Pearse case rested on the more exciting but few and faded 40-year-old memories of others, since the Pearse phenomenon is of more modem origin - itself a cause for caution. Is there any real excuse from serious researchers of a topic that fascinates so many New Zealanders for none until now having discovered, the lengthy article that destroyed the legend? Should we not have wondered why a full report on what would have been one of the epic achievements of the 20th century happening near Timaru could not even make the local paper? One can't help thinking the Pearse industry is based on wishes being father of thoughts. David McCARTHY Riccarton
Errol
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Post by errolmartyn on May 14, 2012 16:38:47 GMT 12
Letter that appeared in the Press of 7 May 2012:
They saw Pearse fly
David Gunby (May 2) writes critically of my letter of May 1 where I support "the dozens of eyewitness accounts that testify to witnessing some aspect of Pearse's aircraft development and subsequent attempts at controlled flight prior to 1904". What was cut from my letter is that Martyn claims in his article of May 28 that all these witnesses were "unnamed". To the contrary, they were all named and recorded. Why this misleading statement? Part of the answer, I suggest, lies with the help of David Gunby, and his advice to me, and "those sharing my faith", that we need to read Martyn's book where, Gunby says, we "will find a salutary warning, quoted from an expert on memory, about the transience and unreliability of 'recollections of where and when an event occurred'." Goodness me, is there no end to the promotion of this book? We can all recall a few precious or dramatic events in our lives, even as children or young adults. If we lived in the rural back blocks of the Waitohi district between 1902 and 1904 and saw an aeroplane accelerating down the road (akin to seeing a spaceship today), take off and fly in the air for some distance and then crash on top of a 12-foot-high gorse hedge, I suggest most of us would hold that memory forever. I suspect Martyn is caught between a rock and a hard place. To change history by no longer accepting Pearse's pre-eminent position in early New Zealand aviation history, he has to also establish that there is no value to be placed on any of those eyewitness Cushla Murphy RD2 Rangiora -----------------
I wrote the following letter to The Press on the same day as Murphy's was published, but it has not appeared in the paper, thus denying me the right to defend myself:
Cushla Murphy (May 7) states that I wrote an article on Richard Pearse that appeared in the Press on May 28 [sic]. That article, published on April 28, was not by me but by Max Lambert (he was in error over his “unnamed” witnesses comment). Murphy demonstrates she cannot accurately remember something of only a few days previous yet, surprisingly, she expects us to uncritically accept memories recorded half a century after the event about Richard Pearse’s first aeroplane. Earlier, in your May 1st issue, Murphy also chastised me for the “self-promotion” of my book, as though it was some sort of crime to do so. As it happens, all media interviews with me to date were done at the invitation of those media. They were not initiated by me. Nor was A Passion For Flight written for personal financial reward, any profits from its sale go to the Aviation Historical Society of New Zealand.
Errol
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Post by Dave Homewood on May 14, 2012 16:57:30 GMT 12
Are these letter writers (apart from Gordon Ogilvie) regular members of the Richard Pearse Debate Society? Or are they simply people off the street?
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Post by Evan Gardiner on May 14, 2012 17:18:36 GMT 12
Given free rein I could very easily directly counter each point that Martyn has made with his attempt to discredit myself and my article published in The Press 10th May. However to do so would extend the size of the resulting post to an unacceptable level and I can already sense a feeling of boredom with this subject creeping in.
I am certainly not presenting myself as either a historian or researcher, but viewed dispassionately, I would have thought that a ‘historian’ should be able to objectively approach his subject with an open mind to the possibility that there are other points of view to be considered from other ‘historians’. And above all that these other researchers deserve respect for their work and that your own view should be presented in a factual, unemotional and impersonal way.
Not so in this case. Gordon Ogilvie and Geoff Rodliffe, both respectable authors of books documenting the history of Richard Pearse have been attacked by Martyn. For example, in the Press 28th April 2012 article used to promote Martyn’s book, the reporter notes: ‘He (Martyn) scorns aircraft engineer Geoff Rodliffe and Pearse biographer Gordon Ogilvie……’, and from this very message board on April 7th 2011 Martyn posted “contrary to the imaginative rubbish promoted by Mr Rodliffe, et al over the years,…….’
And other professionals don’t fare much better either. On the previous page of this thread on this forum Martyn has totally rubbished the TV and newspaper reporters/editors that he has had to deal with recently while promoting his book. Whatever, in the interests of accuracy, for the record and for the benefit of other readers of this site, I would like to offer these few bullet points for their consideration.
• I suggest the release of The Timaru Post, November 17, 1909 article by the Timaru Herald on 24th April, seriously undermined Martyn’s campaign to discredit Pearse because it revealed the advanced stage of Pearse’s aircraft. Obviously it would have taken many years of development to get to this level.
• In a Press article dated 28th April the following was attributed to Martyn: “Errol Martyn, has unearthed a published newspaper letter written by Pearse himself………..”. Fact is, this letter has been available for many years. This letter from Pearse to The Dunedin Evening Star on May 10, 1915 was reprinted in the book ‘The Riddle Of Richard Pearse’ by Gordon Ogilvie published in 1973.
• By Martyn choosing to quote a selected part out of that letter, (Pearse) “started out to solve the problem about March 1904” and to not include the very next sentence “The Wrights started at about the same time.”, Martyn has also chosen to completely misrepresent the meaning of Pearse’s letter.
• Briefly, in reply to one of Martyn’s many postings today; where he quotes from material held by the Wigram Airforce Museum, (Pearse did) “not attempt anything practical with the idea until, in 1904.”The period 1902 to the end of 1903 was a time in history when powered, controlled flight was not a “practical” reality anywhere. So for Pearse it could just as easilly meant that until he could actually control an aircraft in flight it was not yet “practical” for him either.
• Finally, as a previous commentator has noted, Martyn is seriously caught between a rock and a hard place here. For Martyn to change history by no longer accepting that Pearse was involved in building and testing his aircraft prior to 1904, he has to also establish that there is no value to be placed on any of those eye witness accounts between 1902 and 1904. Martyn also has to be in complete denial of the fact that our own common sense will show that we can all recall a number of special events and people we have known and to hold those memories for ever. Martyn’s response to this irrefutable fact will also allow him to have the last word on this matter! “Not commonsense but provable nonsense.”
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Post by johnnyfalcon on May 14, 2012 17:29:45 GMT 12
"Murphy demonstrates she cannot accurately remember something of only a few days previous yet, surprisingly, she expects us to uncritically accept memories recorded half a century after the event about Richard Pearse’s first aeroplane."
TOUCHE!
...and:
"a powered kite" - this statement captures EXACTLY how I've always seen Pearse's machine, TOUCHE too!!
I admire the imagination, creativity, efforts, and tenacity of Richard Pearse. For me he has a special place in the beginning of NZ aviation history. Perhaps the first example of the grass-roots homebuilder. Emotion and parochialism aside, it seems to me a good dose of objectivity is needed by some.
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Post by flyjoe180 on May 15, 2012 10:53:18 GMT 12
Not related to 'White Rabbit' are you Evan?
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