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Post by frankpilot on Oct 30, 2024 19:34:34 GMT 12
The world's first becoming airborne in a heavier-than-air powered aircraft was not the Wright Brothers in December 1903 but probably New Zealander Richard Pearse some 8 or 9 months earlier. With further development the Wrights did then go to sustained, fully controlled flight in 1904/5. Come see how Pearse did it. Hope you enjoy. Cheers.
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Post by errolmartyn on Oct 30, 2024 21:26:30 GMT 12
The world's first becoming airborne in a heavier-than-air powered aircraft was not the Wright Brothers in December 1903 but probably New Zealander Richard Pearse some 8 or 9 months earlier. With further development the Wrights did then go to sustained, fully controlled flight in 1904/5. Come see how Pearse did it. Hope you enjoy. Cheers. So sad to see such rubbish about Richard Pearse published here. Pearse did not make his first flight attempt (unsuccessful) until November 1909 (repeat 1909). See Chapter Eight of my first volume of 'A Passion for Flight' or a similar account in 'The Aviation Historian No. 6' for details about his first aeroplane and attempts to fly it. Errol |
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Post by frankpilot on Oct 31, 2024 0:09:36 GMT 12
The world's first becoming airborne in a heavier-than-air powered aircraft was not the Wright Brothers in December 1903 but probably New Zealander Richard Pearse some 8 or 9 months earlier. With further development the Wrights did then go to sustained, fully controlled flight in 1904/5. Come see how Pearse did it. Hope you enjoy. Cheers. So sad to see such rubbish about Richard Pearse published here. Pearse did not make his first flight attempt (unsuccessful) until November 1909 (repeat 1909). See Chapter Eight of my first volume of 'A Passion for Flight' or a similar account in 'The Aviation Historian No. 6' for details about his first aeroplane and attempts to fly it. Errol My video simply summarises the very, very many articles online and in print about Pearse, not just Wikipedia but govt, museums, libraries, engineering bodies, universities, journals, etc etc and not just in NZ. Your view never popped up in any of these. Your ref “sad to see such rubbish” might be more appropriately taken up with them. |
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Post by johnnyfalcon on Oct 31, 2024 6:35:18 GMT 12
Good intentions, most likely. But you've put your head into the Lion's jaws unfortunately
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Post by Dave Homewood on Oct 31, 2024 9:19:17 GMT 12
ADMINISTRATOR NOTE:
This is a contentious subject, and one that has been researched over the years by numerous historians who have all come to different conclusions. Errol's research is probably the most recent interpretation of the facts and the myths, and he was able to find more evidence than previous researchers unearthed that points towards Pearse's attempts to fly being much later. This is despite a very detailed interview with Pearse's brother who claimed he was involved and puts the events at the earlier dates.
We will never 100% discover the truth with this case, but there is no need to be rude to others who disagree with your view on it. Please choose your words more carefully rather than using emotive and perhaps provocative terms such as "rubbish". In a case like this, no-one can unequivocally claim a version of events to be right or wrong.
Personally I think it was very unlikely that Richard Pearse achieved powered flight, controlled or otherwise, before the Wrights did. If he did, then why was there no newspaper reports at the time? With so many supposed witnesses, someone would have alerted the press, surely. That is how things worked then. The entire community could not have watched him fly and then shrugged and carried on with life as if nothing happened. But who knows...
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Post by frankpilot on Oct 31, 2024 12:00:18 GMT 12
Errol and Dave and everyone else, let’s not start yet another debate on the probably impossible. Many many hours of research go into my short videos. What I put in the video is all over the place and it sure looked like some sort of consensus. I am so very surprised Errol’s stuff did not come to the surface. I find Errol’s view interesting and intend to pursue it further. You never know, another video maybe! Let’s leave it at that! Cheers All.
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Post by planecrazy on Oct 31, 2024 13:49:15 GMT 12
You make a great point Dave you would think at least one of these hops would have attracted some form of media, even back then,
Christchurch and Timaru aren't that far away, all be it further away back then than they are today with modern transport.
One thing that can't be taken away from Pearce is what he did achieve, he was out on the plains away from support, no one to bounce
things off. His neighbours and even his own family thinking he was "Mad Pearce."
He made his own engine a horizontal apposed twin cylinder, also a powered cycle, a music machine among other things that would have been
seen as crazy stuff for the times!
The mere fact that the thing even got off the ground is amazing, don't want to take anything away from the Wright's and what they achieved,
they did launch down greased rail into wind and flew straight.
Pearce had very high standards, wanted to take off and return to his start point, he had tricycle undercart with wheels not skids also three
access control not wing warping.
He achieved a lot considering his location and resources. Horizontally apposed engines, tricycle undercart and three access control are the
norm these days. All of this he thought up over one hundred years ago!
I have said this before, I for one feel a bit of patriotism and the underdog getting up plays into the whole myth of people wanting to believe
he beat the Wrights into the air? What's that saying don't let the truth get in the way of a good story.......
That's my head in the lions mouth.....
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Post by errolmartyn on Oct 31, 2024 15:44:09 GMT 12
You make a great point Dave you would think at least one of these hops would have attracted some form of media, even back then, Christchurch and Timaru aren't that far away, all be it further away back then than they are today with modern transport. One thing that can't be taken away from Pearce is what he did achieve, he was out on the plains away from support, no one to bounce things off. His neighbours and even his own family thinking he was "Mad Pearce." He made his own engine a horizontal apposed twin cylinder, also a powered cycle, a music machine among other things that would have been seen as crazy stuff for the times! The mere fact that the thing even got off the ground is amazing, don't want to take anything away from the Wright's and what they achieved, they did launch down greased rail into wind and flew straight. Pearce had very high standards, wanted to take off and return to his start point, he had tricycle undercart with wheels not skids also three access control not wing warping. He achieved a lot considering his location and resources. Horizontally apposed engines, tricycle undercart and three access control are the norm these days. All of this he thought up over one hundred years ago! I have said this before, I for one feel a bit of patriotism and the underdog getting up plays into the whole myth of people wanting to believe he beat the Wrights into the air? What's that saying don't let the truth get in the way of a good story....... That's my head in the lions mouth..... Note that his name is PEARSE and not PEARCE as you have it. Also, the Wrights flights of 17 Dec 03 were not launched 'down greased rail'. Errol |
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Post by errolmartyn on Oct 31, 2024 15:52:36 GMT 12
ADMINISTRATOR NOTE: . . . This is despite a very detailed interview with Pearse's brother who claimed he was involved and puts the events at the earlier dates... Warne Pearse's comments were 'remembered' some 40-50 years after the event. His family threw away most of Richard Pearse's papers after he died. It was only the 50th anniversary of the Wrights 17 Dec 03 achievement, in the year following RP's death, that Warne began to 'remember' when his brother's 'flights' took place. Many of these 'first flight' accounts are heavily peppered with ‘remembers’, ‘believes’, ‘could have’ and the like. As memory expert Daniel L. Schacter warns in his The Seven Sins of Memory, ‘recollections of when and where an event occurred, or who said what, tend to be especially transient.’ Errol |
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Post by Dave Homewood on Oct 31, 2024 15:56:42 GMT 12
Indeed, but I guess Richard Pearse's own evidence was also memories of events recorded decades later too. There is nothing from the time, only eye witness accounts recorded much later and all subject to error.
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Post by errolmartyn on Oct 31, 2024 15:59:08 GMT 12
'. . . In a case like this, no-one can unequivocally claim a version of events to be right or wrong.' Sorry Dave, but yes they can as regards any claim that Pearse flew prior to the Wright brothers, or for that matter, prior to 1909.
Errol
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Post by errolmartyn on Oct 31, 2024 16:10:17 GMT 12
In a letter to Dunedin’s Evening Star of 10 March 1915 Pearse states quite categorically that up to that time he ‘only built one aeroplane’.
So what do we know about this ‘one aeroplane’?
The Press, 3 Nov 09, features the earliest known contemporaneous public reference to Pearse’s ‘flying machine’:
. . . He intends to make a trial flight with his airship [sic] at an early date. The framework of the ship is of bamboo, the wings all of calico, and the propelling power is a motor. The inventor is Mr Richard Pearse, of Waitohi.
The Tuapeka Times, 17 Nov 09, features the earliest known report of a flight attempt. The same item was also published by the Otago Witness of same date:
The inventor . . . made a trial flight with the ship a day or two ago. He took it on to a hill in a field of wheat and set the motor going, but the machine refused to use its wings in the desired way, and fluttered down the hill aimlessly.
News of these attempts reached the offices of the Timaru Post who, on 16 November, sent their reporter to interview the inventor at his home at Waitohi. Published by the paper next day, the description of the visit runs to a column and half, about a third of which is Pearse quoted in his own words. This verbatim part of the interview with Pearse can be found on Papers Past by searching the Clutha Leader of 30 November. The Timaru Post is not yet online at Papers Past but the full text can be found in Chapter Eight of my A Passion for Flight – New Zealand Aviation before the Great War: Volume One – Ideas, first flight attempts and the Aeronauts 1968-1909 or in the British journal The Aviation Historian No.6 (published January 2014). The engine was run briefly for the reporter’s benefit but no flights were attempted.
Otago Witness, 1 December 1909: The weekly paper published an account by Sam H. Carter who had also visited Pearse (probably after the Timaru Post report?). Carter’s account included details of Pearse’s machine. As the December issue of the paper is missing from Papers Past (the previous and following months are there, however), readers are referred to the full copy that appears in the appendices of Gordon Ogilvie’s The Riddle of Richard Pearse. (The copy was located and provided to Ogilvie by me.)
The Temuka Leader (available online at Papers Past) and Geraldine Guardian, somewhat belatedly following in the footsteps of the alert Timaru Post and Otago Witness, stated in identical reports in their 14 December issues that ‘we’ had visited Pearse ‘recently’.
[Pearse, they reported] has already had some trials, and has been off the ground several times, but it is not easy to balance her. He has improved on previous performances every time, and in his latest effort he flew about 25 yards. . . .
The Temuka Leader and the Geraldine Guardian seem to have lost interest in Pearse following their December visit, for they appear to have reported nothing further about the aeroplane. The Timaru Post, though, caught up again with Pearse towards the end of January 1910 and reported that the inventor
. . . has made a number of successful flights of 200, 300, and 400 yards. He is not, however, satisfied with the power of his 25 h.p. petrol engine (his own invention) weighing only 100lb, and is now busy installing a 50 h.p. engine (also his own invention) weighing 110lb.
These ‘flights’ are almost certainly the low-flying hops remembered by some witnesses as being conducted along local Waitohi roads, but which they wrongly believed had taken place years earlier. None of them came close to being powered, sustained and controlled flights.
Pearse had apparently been asked if he would display his monoplane before the public at New Year but declined: . . . his machine did not fly a distance of least one mile, that he required it to do before appearing in public.
At this point the Post also appears to have lost interest in following up the story, probably because Pearse was never able to make a true flight. If any flight attempts were made with the new engine over the next five months they appear to have gone unreported.
These newspaper reports were found by the writer aided by the late Bob Kerr of Timaru long before Papers Past placed any of them online. It seems rather remarkable that Gordon Ogilvie (a teacher, not a historian) never thought to check the Timaru Post even though a copy was held by the nearby Museum in Timaru. He seems, instead. to have been 'captured' by locals who 'remembered' flights.
Errol
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Post by errolmartyn on Oct 31, 2024 16:26:18 GMT 12
Indeed, but I guess Richard Pearse's own evidence was also memories of events recorded decades later too. There is nothing from the time, only eye witness accounts recorded much later and all subject to error. You were too quick off the mark, Dave! See my longer message that was being compiled while you were posting yours and which follows, where published accounts of flight attempts made in late 1909 and early 1910 are summarised. Errol |
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Post by planecrazy on Oct 31, 2024 16:58:38 GMT 12
You make a great point Dave you would think at least one of these hops would have attracted some form of media, even back then, Christchurch and Timaru aren't that far away, all be it further away back then than they are today with modern transport. One thing that can't be taken away from Pearce is what he did achieve, he was out on the plains away from support, no one to bounce things off. His neighbours and even his own family thinking he was "Mad Pearce." He made his own engine a horizontal apposed twin cylinder, also a powered cycle, a music machine among other things that would have been seen as crazy stuff for the times! The mere fact that the thing even got off the ground is amazing, don't want to take anything away from the Wright's and what they achieved, they did launch down greased rail into wind and flew straight. Pearce had very high standards, wanted to take off and return to his start point, he had tricycle undercart with wheels not skids also three access control not wing warping. He achieved a lot considering his location and resources. Horizontally apposed engines, tricycle undercart and three access control are the norm these days. All of this he thought up over one hundred years ago! I have said this before, I for one feel a bit of patriotism and the underdog getting up plays into the whole myth of people wanting to believe he beat the Wrights into the air? What's that saying don't let the truth get in the way of a good story....... That's my head in the lions mouth..... Note that his name is PEARSE and not PEARCE as you have it. Also, the Wrights flights of 17 Dec 03 were not launched 'down greased rail'. Errol Okay thank you |
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