Richard
Pearse (1877-1953)
Richard Pearse's first
patented invention, dating from 1902, was an ingenious new
style of bicycle, bamboo-framed with a vertical-drive pedal
action, rod-and-rack gearing system, back-pedal rim-brakes
and integral tyre pumps.
But flying, not cycling,
was his dream. Through Scientific American Pearse
kept in touch with experimentation overseas. There is
evidence he was working on ideas for powered flight from
1899 and had built his first two-cylinder petrol engine by
1902. He then constructed, using bamboo, tubular steel, wire
and canvas, a low aspect ratio monoplane.
Of prophetic design, it
closely resembled a modern microlight aircraft in
appearance. After considerable taxiing on his farm paddocks
Pearse made his first public flight attempt down Main
Waitohi Road adjacent to his farm. After a short distance
aloft, perhaps 50 yards, he crashed on top of his own gorse
fence. No details were recorded, by Pearse or onlookers, of
this tentative flight. In two letters, published in 1915 and
1928, the inventor writes of February or March 1904 as the
time when he set out to solve the problem of aerial
navigation. He also states that he did not achieve proper
flight and did not beat the American brothers Orville and
Wilbur Wright who flew on 17 December 1903. However, a great
deal of eyewitness testimony, able to be dated
circumstantially, suggests that 31 March 1903 was the likely
date of this first flight attempt. (The year 1902 also has
its advocates.) Pearse continued his flying experiments,
achieving several further powered take-offs or long hops,
most of them witnessed. None of them, in terms of length or
control, was a true flight by any strict definition. In July
1906 he patented his aircraft.
Whether or not Pearse flew
in any acceptable sense, and regardless of the exact date,
his first aircraft was a remarkable invention embodying
several far-sighted concepts: a monoplane configuration,
wing flaps and rear elevator, tricycle undercarriage with
steerable nosewheel, and a propeller with variable-pitch
blades driven by a unique double-acting horizontally opposed
petrol engine.
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