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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."
This has been repeated time and time again for years, it's just that most Americans are simply in the dark of the fact. Those historians that do realise it don't really mention it much.
Patriotism simply gets in the way of the truth sometimes. It's an unfortunate side-effect of human nature.
that New Zealand can make Slashdot news two days in a row.. with LOTR-TTT and this. But really, this is older than the hills of Hobbiton. Down these parts, its well accepted that Pearce took the first flight. But no-one in the 'outside' world new about it.. until well after the Wright's made the irectractable headlines. No big deal tho huh ?
this is not a flawless plan.. this is inspiration
Imagine... building such a machine from scratch, with hardly any prior experience to build upon. According to the article he had to figure out and build everything himself up to the engine and the prop. Then... climbing into that thing and actually flying it. Remember, this guy didn't attend flight school first.
Anyway, here's a picture of the replica and a lot more info.
If construction was anything like programming, an incorrectly fitted lock would bring down the entire building...
As another post already mentioned, this story has been around a long while. It is even incorporated into Peter Jackson's fake documentary, "Forgotten Silver". Made for NZ television, it's about a mythical filmmaker named Colin McKenzie who supposedly pioneered all sorts of things like color film, etc. Along the way, he happened to film Pearse's flight. The movie shows the recently 'dicovered' footage, and does such a good job of it that a large number of viewers took it as real, and then got very mad at Mr Jackson when he pointed out it was false. Happily, New Zealanders now seem to be quite keen on him again, what with the success of that Lords and Rings movie. "Forgotten Silver" is on DVD, and you should check it out.
And in a few months, I get to travel to NZ again...hooray!
Cheers, Mike V.
http://www.wam.umd.edu/~stwright/WrBr/inventors/Li lienthal.html
For that matter the Wrights themselves flew long before they 'flew.' In gliders rather than powered planes.
Pearse's plane seems to have been something more than a mere glider, but less than a true airplane, which the article in question seems to say Pearse himself fully realized.
What perhaps Pearse didn't realize is that the Wrights were no more 'schooled' then he was, one of the facts that led many to deny the Wrights had actually flown. I mean really, just who were these upstart bicycle mechanics from *Ohio* who claimed to have accomplished that which those who the world acknowledged as having the best engineering minds had failed at, time and again?
Unlike Pearse though, the Wrights were highly scientifc and methodical in their approach. Taking every step slowly. Testing, testing, and then testing some more. Working up the final product in careful measured steps.
The true legacy of the Wrights wasn't the first flight. Just as Tesla left little for anyone else to do other than refinement in the world of electricity, the Wrights left little for others to do in the theoretical field of subsonic aeronautics. Some of their theoretical principles were so advanced that they weren't commonly accepted as true until after WWII.
It doesn't really matter who 'flew' first. The Wrights gave us the *field* of flight.
All that having been said Pearse certainly sounds like the sort of 'loon' I could spend a happy lifetime hanging out with.
KFG
Other people had glided before, but no one had powered themselves off of the ground.
Erm, yes they had.
Do a google on
"John Stringfellow"
"Clément Ader"
"Gustav Albin Weißkopf"
All of whom flew before both Richard Pearse and the Wright brothers.
The history of why the Wright Brothers are considered to be the first is almost as interesting as the history of aviation. For instance, this sounds plausible:
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."
But as the Smithsonian can keep hold of the Wright Flyer only as long as the Smithsonian never claim that somebody else got there first, one has to say Dr. Jakab isn't exactly impartial.
If you ask me who was first is irrelivant. It was an idea whose time had come.
Do you mind, your karma has just run over my dogma.
This guy was not the only one. Take Clément Ader, for instance. He managed a flight of 50 meters in 1890 in a steam-powered bat-like aeroplane, but with the wrong technology, one that forbade improvements, when the Wrights gave the right direction (and came at the right time, too).
The credit (or lack thereof) given to the inventor or discoverer throughout history has always been to the one that speaks loudest to the commons. We all know the debate that Columbus did not "discover" America, as there were plenty of people there first.
A lesser known example but just as true is was the fight between Alexander Graham Bell and Elisha Gray over who invented the telephone (Google other resources). In that battle, Bell filed a patent and Gray filed his caveat (intent to file a patent) the same day.
Sadly, we all too commonly think that a "single" person or firm must have invented something, while others often have inventions that predate them. It's no wonder the patent office is getting confused (although they really should try cutting down on the duplicates).
I live a few tens of kilometres from the site of the flight -- Pearse is something of a local celebrity/historical figure, some (funny) pictures including an impression of the original plane.
:).
A replica of his plane is on display in our local museum, sadly it's not online but it's mentioned at the bottom of this article, with the original at the Museum of Transport in Auckland (NZ's largest city, at the top of the North Island, we're in the middle of the South Island's east coast).
As the article states it's hard to verify his accomplishments, and for that reason I believe that the Wright brothers will hold their record for a while unless any stunning new evidence arises. Still, good on Pearse, one of aviation's original hackers
Urmm... maybe it's just me, but there is a big difference between Americans celebrating French holidays and spoofing facts in your children's history books.
And if you don't think you celebrate the Chinese new year, you've obviously not spent any time in San Fransisco or Manhattan... for a start.
"this Australian fellow"
New Zealander! Please pay attention.
"Here in America we also celebrate Independence Day on the 4rth of July"
(it's 4th) and at least that makes SOME kind of sense - America was a colony and gained independence, so a national holiday in celebration seems logical enough. Surely Americans don't REALLY believe the Ford Model T to be the first car? Apart from anything else, there were plenty of American cars that preceded it.
That was classic intercourse!
I agree with you that inventions often are made by different people at about the same time. As another poster said, the idea was out, time was ready for flight. I also agree with you that the one who loses the fight for recognition often comes off as a paranoid loon.
But there is an important aspect of international politics here too. Being able to claim that your nation is the 'inventor' of aviation is a powerful tool of propaganda. Maybe not alone, but along with several other claims of invention, you would make your nation look intellectually superior to others. This isn't necessarily a bad thing, and would probably give the inhabitants in that country greater confidence in themselves and their abilties or opportunities as inventors, thus spurring new inventions.
I perfectly understand why one would resort to this type of propaganda, but it is nevertheless still propaganda. Even if you or I don't care much what country really 'invented' aviation, somebody appearantly care enough to, if not falsify, then certainly to bend history to fit their means.
Even if in this particular case, the Wright brothers turn out to be the real 'inventors', there are plenty of other interesting examples out there (like Edison vs. Swan).
Patriotism is no excuse for ignorance
How small a thought it takes to fill a whole life
The Wrights developed the very first theory of propellors, and theirs was 70% efficient. Quite remarkable. The Wrights built their own engine from scratch, did not employ skilled engineers for their first airplane, and devised the first wind tunnel to test airfoil sections. The Wrights did make a survey of all available information on building airplanes, and found what little existed to be totally wrong (such as Lilienthal's data). They did what was likely the first modern R&D program (building successive prototypes, each building on the results from the previous, all targetted at powered flight). The Wrights did it all from scratch.
It lies in this technicality. They were the first to take off under their own power from an altitude equal or less than the spot that they landed from.
Pearce's flights are described as being made from a hill, landing in a spot near a creek at a lower elevation.
People had been gliding for years before the Wright's. People built much better gliders then the Wright Flyer. Glenn Curtis built a great plane very shortly after the Wrights. While the Wrights stored their plane for 4 years after the 17th Dec 1903... Trying to lock down patents on it. The fact however remains that by the majority of serious aeronautical engineers they are the birth of the age of powered flight.
Patriotism... maybe a little... but spliting hairs is much more of an apt description... I for one think that it's a valid distinction.
I remember childish nationalistic, patriotic gibberish before it was dangerious. In NZ we learnt that although our nations population was smaller than the number of commuters at a typical Tokyo railway station daily. (Shinjuku/Tokyo/ Ueno) We had produced the climber of the worlds biggest mountain (unless it was actually his sherpa) Rutherford was the first to split the atom (I think he used paper) And a New Zealander invented the marine jet engine. We have an above average rugby team and are defending our current holding of the world cup for the second time. We also have a hairy, overweight genuis who has successfully tackled the lord of the rings. The country itself is too beautiful for most of you to imagine. It was a Canadian trying to score points against the states who resurfaced this out of the embarrassment Canada has for being Americas northern 'mini-me' We NZr's don't refer to it much as our worldleading humility forbids it
Quantifying chaos since 63