First "Flight" - Wright Brothers or KIWI Richard Pearse (MSFS)

[FrankPilot 138]

The world's first becoming airborne in a heavier-than-air powered aircraft was not the Wright Brothers in December 1903 but probably New Zealander Richard Pearse some 8 or 9 months earlier. With further development the Wrights did then go to sustained, fully controlled flight in 1904/5. Come see how Pearse did it. Hope you enjoy. Cheers.

https://youtu.be/u-ZZlQc18QU?si=hItAeVeQ6CCm6vzC

[brett 2,314]

It seems Pearce indeed was a great inventor and probably deserves more of an entry in history than the likes of Wikipedia can come up with, i.e., 

Pearse

[edit]

Main article: Richard Pearse

Richard Pearse was a New Zealand farmer and inventor who performed pioneering aviation experiments. Witnesses interviewed many years afterward claimed that Pearse flew and landed a powered heavier-than-air machine on 31 March 1903, nine months before the Wright brothers flew. [82]: 21–30  Documentary evidence for these claims remains open to interpretation and dispute, and Pearse himself never made such claims. In a newspaper interview in 1909, he said he did not "attempt anything practical ... until 1904".[83] If he did fly in 1903, the flight appears to have been poorly controlled in comparison to the Wrights'. See the Wikipedia page here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_aviation#Further_reading

Perhaps you should write them and add your conclusions. I wonder how much information Pearce had from those before him such as 'Physics of flight by Sir George Caley along with other inventors that first made gliders and then others that didn't fly but did work on powered flight.

Along those same lines, what did the Wright brothers learn from others before them and did they know about Pearce's work.

All that said, I enjoyed learning about Mr. Pearce's efforts at powered flight, he almost got it right and with help might have beat the Wight's in the first controlled flight. Thanks Frank.