> Is there a nation which does'nt lay claim to first flight? =A0:)

> My knowledge runs no deeper than Wikipedia, but NZ seems to
> have as good a claim as many.

> I suppose Montgolfier, et al, doesn't count...

The key terms (or weasel words, depending on whether you want to like
its face) are "heavier than air powered flight."
Those who prefer some other face may add words like "sustained" or
"controlled" depending which pretender they preferred. By that measure
NZ was probably first. Arguably the Wright's first 12 second flight
was hardly "sustained" although it was more or less "controlled" as
evidenced or at least adumbrated by later longer flights.

Richard Pearce's first and only heavier than air powered flight, which
occurred the year before the Wright Brothers' first 'flight',  was of
unknown duration - apparently enough to cross a dryish river bed - and
probably not overly controlled. The remains were left embedded in the
river bank where the craft "landed" - to be dug out some decades later
and ultimately they ended up in their present location at MOTAT
(Museum of Transport and Technology" in Western Springs, Auckland, NZ,
a mere WAC Corporal flight from here. (They have one of those too, but
in not too much better repair, despite never having been used).

"Of Course" [tm] Wright aficionados will not have a bar of any
suggestion that W&O were second. I am not ware of any other claim that
comes more credibly close to having been earlier, using the weasel
words / definition above. I have heard other claims which sound to me
(of course) less credible.

Pearce, like the Wrights, 'built all his own stuff', but whereas they
had the ability to pay for other's services (whether they did I know
not) Pearce was a loner and built everything himself including, of
course, the engine. He had a motorised bicycle when such things were
solidly in the realms of fiction. He was as close mechanically to a
modern Leonardo da Vinci as one could hope for except he did not,
apparently, unlike LdV, have ADHD, so actually implemented his ideas
instead of only drawing and modelling them and writing about them, and
severely annoying the pope of the day as a a consequence. I am not
aware of Pearce painting or sculpting, except in steel with a welding
torch. Pearce built a later heavier than air craft with variable pitch
prop, swing wing and intended VTOL / STOL capability. Alas, it was
too-much-heavier-than-air for the engine power his hand made engine
could produce and it never flew. This no doubt saved it from
destruction, and the actual craft is in MOTAT, alongside the remains
of its world beating older brother.


              Russell

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