Kiwi Flight Before the Wright Brothers?

houseofmore writes "The Toronto Star is is reporting that New Zealander Richard Pearse may have very well made several flights beginning almost nine months before the Wright Brothers ever got off the ground. It also notes that "Mad Pearse's" machine was in some ways more advanced than the first Wright Flyer."

Comments

Essentially another first-poster, a 100 years ago

[Vendekkai]

A quote from the article, "Dr. Peter Jakab, a curator at the Smithsonian's National Air and Space Museum in Washington D.C., doesn't deny that Pearse got off the ground. "But what he flew was essentially a powered glider flying into a ravine. So it wasn't a true powered flight. He's just one of many pre-Wright claimants."

Newspapers need to have stories like this occassionally. Therefore, Francis Bacon wrote Shakespeare, and this guy flew first.

If he actually did, well, tough. Inventions and discoveries often happen contemporaneously. One of them gets the credit, and the others peddle paranoid theories.

It's All About Eyeballs

[USC-MBA]

This story may seem like a poignant bit of trivia about a footnote to history, but a deeper look reveals a lesson in this story for all of us.

There are photographs and exact data to prove that Orville Wright made a 12-second, 36.6-metre flight at Kill Devil Hills, North Carolina, Dec. 17, 1903 (...)

There's nothing but a handful of informally collected eyewitness accounts to confirm Pearse's first flight.

The moral of the story is: never underestimate the importance of a good marketing department.

The Wrights were not stupid. They realized the importance of what they were doing and made sure that their efforts would be documented. As the above quote demonstrates, this documentation is what led them to fame and fortune.

In today's competitive marketplace, it is not enough to be a "geek" with a dream. Different people have different kinds of expertise, and one asset any inventor or entrepeneur needs is a good marketing department, one that will see that the right information gets out to the right market segments, ensuring success for all.

Microsoft, RSA, eBay, the tech world is full of companies whose founders had the foresight to recruit and work closely with top talent from the management, financial, and marketing communitites.

So remember the lesson of "Bamboo Dick" Pearse the next time you want to curse out some "marketroid" who doesn't have the same comfort levels around technology as you. His department might be the only thing that keeps your company from joining the long, long list of good business ideas that didn't quite work out.

Re:One has to admire the nerve of those guys...

[AndroidCat]

Imagine.. Two bicycle mechanics building such a machine from scratch, with hardly any prior experience to build upon. According to the article they had to figure out and build everything themselves up to the engine and the prop. Then... climbing into that thing and actually flying it. Remember, those guys didn't attend flight school first. :^P I think everyone was in the same boat, er, plane at that time.

To be fair, the Wrights didn't build the engine.