Pearse replica — will it fly?

[kiwithrottlejockey]

Replica plane on course for lift-off

By ESTHER ASHBY-COVENTRY - The Timaru Herald | 5:00AM - Friday, 05 July 2013


FILMING PROGRESS: Ivan Mudrovcich’s aircraft is the subject of documentary.
— WAYNE JOHNSON/Eye On U Productions Ltd.

A REPRODUCTION of South Canterbury inventor Richard Pearse's aircraft of 1903 is raising hopes this one will get off the ground.

Retired Auckland based automotive engineer Ivan Mudrovcich has spent the past nine years recreating the aircraft based on the Pearse patent description and other research.

Pareora part-time engineer Lex Westoby said he thought Mr Mudrovcich was quite ingenious and he expected the flight attempt, planned for October, would be successful.

Mr Westoby spent three years working on a replica engine, based on Pearse's original plans, which was attached to a frame in 2003. But the project was never completed and flight was not attempted.

Mr Westoby said the engine ran well with plenty of thrust and the craft was now at the South Canterbury Aviation Heritage Centre.

He thought whoever piloted Mr Mudrovcich's reproduction would be brave as the technology was from the 1900s and its behaviour once off the ground was unknown.

"You can't use modern-day flying tactics," Mr Westoby said.

Mr Mudrovcich said a retired Air NZ pilot was prepared for the role and safety was a consideration of the planned flight.

Mr Mudrovcich spent a lot of time studying and analysing the language of the era and what was written. Deciphering the patent was one of the biggest challenges.

The first flight attempt last year, to see how much lift it had while on the back of a trailer, broke a wing. The next attempt in about October will be at the Whenuapai Air Force base in Auckland.

Regardless of the outcome, Mr Mudrovcich wants to make public the technical realities and counteract any misinformation.

Since 2008, freelance video cameraman Wayne Johnson has been filming the project for a documentary called Will It Fly? which will be released at Rialto cinemas in Auckland and Dunedin.

Mr Johnson said it was possible the documentary would be shown in Timaru in the future.

www.stuff.co.nz/timaru-herald/news/8880927/Replica-plane-on-course-for-lift-off

[errolmartyn]

Oh Dear, here we go again!

"Mr Mudrovcich wants to make public the technical realities and counteract any misinformation."

Sadly, Mr Mudrovcich in his misguided endeavour to built a replica [sic] of Richard Pearse's machine simply adds to the large volume of misinformation that already exists about Pearse and his first aeroplane.

Those interested in a true, properly researched account could do worse than refer to this writer's chapter eight of Volume One of A Passion For Flight published last year.

It would take a small essay to correct all of Mr Mudrovcich's misinformation and put him straight about 'technical realities', suffice it to say here that:

(a) Pearse stated in 1909 that he did not do anything practical about his aeroplane until 1904. He repeated as much in 1915, 1928 and 1943 - so no celebration possible then of a 1903 flight attempt by Pearse.

(b) Mr Mudrovcich falls into a common error in assuming that drawings in Pearse's 1906-1907 patent represent a 'plan' but these, as in most patents of the time, simply represent a concept, which in Pearse's case changed somewhat over the ensuring years leading up to November 1909 when he finally got around to making his first flight attempt. No plans, drawings or photographs of the aeroplane Pearse actually built are known to have survived. It is therefore nonsense to state that the Mudrovcich machine is a replica: it patently is not and cannot be.

(c) The wing fabric on the Mudrovcich machine is attached to the top of the wing, whereas Pearse attached his fabric to the wing's undersurface . There was no top covering.

Errol

[Dave Homewood]

Does anyone know what has become of this replica since Ivan Mudrovcich died last year?

[planewriting]

Interesting discussion on this resurrected thread. Some say Mudrovcich's example is a replica whereas Errol says that is rubbish. What can be said about the other "lookalikes" that have appeared over the years and where are they all?

[davidd]

What replicas have been built, along with numerous attempts by artists over the decades have apparently relied (for the most part) on the patent drawing and associated detailed written description and explanation. Very few have used the information from at least one surviving eyewitness (this was many decades later), plus at least one contemporary news item, that an elliptical wing planform was utilised by Pearse on his aeroplane as actually completed. It is quite possible that this airframe underwent modifications both during construction, as well as after completion, if an experimental machine can ever be considered definitive. Some of the features of the patent specification were almost certainly NOT incorporated in the completed aircraft, particularly the stability features, which apparently were supposed to complement what existing "conventional" controls were also discussed in the patent, but which would undoubtedly have resulted in a death trap should they have been incorporated. I suppose we have to give Pearse some credit for recognising that particular feature as a serious design error, although he never mentioned it in later comments on his aircraft. Automatic stability devices were not uncommonly discussed in the earliest days of aviation, but most were entirely impractical and extremely crude in concept, and would not have done anything to advance the unsteady progress of very early aviation.
David D

[pjw4118]

An aside , but the area in MOTATs ADH vacated by the FAA display is to be used for a NZ Pioneers of flight display including Pearse's later machine which has been held for many years by MOTAT .