Who was the first to fly a plane with an engine, ask any school child in this country and you will get the answer, the Wright Brothers. It was December 17, 1903 when the Wrights made that famous powered flight at Kittyhawk. The flights were short, but they were flights and no one can deny this. What happen when you ask the same question in New Zealand? You get the answer Richard Pearse, of course.

Richard Pearse was born on December 3, 1877 at Waitohi Flat, Temuka, South Island and lived until 1953. His claim to fame is said to be a powered flight on March 31, 1903 before witnesses. Who was this man? Pearse was sort of a mad scientist type of person. He had invented or improved many different types of farm machinery. A replica of his flying machine is on the south island of New Zealand called Waitohi. When a witness was interviewed, he said the flight lasted between 50 - 400 yards. The plane was very interesting. It had ailerons on the wings much like modern planes and didn't use wing warping as did the Wright Flier. The funny part about this is that right now wing warping is being experimented with to see if it would improve performance in modern day jets. Like the Wrights, Pearse built his own engine which was said to be anywhere from twenty to twenty-five horsepower, making it more powerful that the engine on the Wright Flier. Pearse claimed it was the lightest engine for this amount of horse powder in the world. It is said that the engine weighed only about 137 pounds. He never perfected a propeller has did the Wrights. so his propeller was much cruder, but it generally agreed that his plane was more advanced in every other way than the Wright's plane.

The parallel between Pearse and the Wrights is truly amazing. Pearse's first patent was for a bicycle and as we all know, the Wright brothers were bicycle mechanics. The bike was brilliant and even had integral tire pumps and the standard brakes we are all used to today, where you back peddle to stop. It seems that in the late 1890's Pearse became more interested in flight than anything else and kept up with the developments around the world through magazines. By 1899 he had build a two cylinder engine to power a craft and then built a monoplane using various materials such as tubular steel, bamboo, canvas, wire and other materials.

Now here is the strange part. Two letters of his that were published in 1915 and 1928 state that contrary to all the witnesses of his flights he did not achieve proper flight before the Americans. What did he mean by proper flight? Witnesses had said that he flew but then crashed into a hedge. Did he consider the fact that he crashed had nullified his accomplishment? The witnesses state that the flight took place on March 31, 1903 and this would have been almost nine months before the Wright brothers.

One of the things that made Pearse so remarkable is that he build everything personally, and he never went to college because his family couldn't afford to send him. He did receive some advice from Cecil Wood, an engineer, who was the first person in New Zealand to build an internal combustion engine. The Wright brothers employed engineers and machinists to help them. Pearse also used his personal funds for everything. It is said that he didn't even have access to a library and there were no universities that he could utilize. He was building a plane before anyone in this isolated community ever saw an automobile. Pearse not only had to build the engine but he even had to build the spark plugs, carburetor and all the other parts that are necessary for the engine to run.

After he died researchers went through his trash dump searching for clues to his first plane. Much to their surprise, after fifty years, they found pieces of his first plane. The pieces that they had found included a piston which was cast iron, a propeller, and engine cylinders.

People here have build replicas of the Wright flyer over the years and it was no different in New Zealand with Pearse's plane. In the mid 1970's a replica of the plane was build and toured New Zealand. It didn't stop there however, and found its way to the Vancouver Expo in Canada in 1986. A documentary was filmed in 1974 and this helped to tell the Pearse story to many people who had never heard of him.

Richard Pearse soon lost interest in flying and went back to farming, much is the pity.

The Wright brothers were very efficient, not only in building and flying their plane but also in documenting all their early flights using a cameras so there is no denying their feat.

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