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."

A funny country...

[LucidityZero]

From the article:
"New Zealand is still a young country and it's a ... funny country>

Good stuff. Makes me want to go visit. :)

In Soviet Russia.....

[Wibble_NZ]

This is news.

Everywhere else, it's history.

Bamboo Dick

[Anonymous Coward]

"Mad Pearse," also known as "Bamboo Dick" for his building material of choice...

With a handle like that, one would imagine he may have been famous for something else...

Re:A funny country...

[SaxMaster]

"On second thought, lets not go to New Zealand, tis a silly place"

OUCH

[Rubbersoul]

"Mad Pearse," also known as "Bamboo Dick" for his building material of choice...

The first thing I thought of was OUCH!!!

Re:I'm offended

[trotski]

I see what you're saying!

IF we start to believe that the Wright Brothers weren't the first to conduct a powered, controlled flight then the terrorists have already won. Won't somebody PLEASE think of the childeren!

Re:OUCH

[minesweeper]

Remember, bamboo can grow up to several inches per day, and reach lengths of 100 feet. So, maybe a "bamboo dick" isn't so "OUCH" after all.

This sounds like the ultimate compliment, or at least the ultimate spam advertisement.

Gustave Whitehead flew before all of them anyway

[Caractacus Potts]

An American inventor named Gustave Whitehead allegedly flew in Aug 1901. Here's a site [deepsky.com] that explains more of his story. BTW, my ex-girlfriend's parents own the land where the Wright Brothers had their shop (now a hotel), so I'm practically an expert on the matter.

Re:Gustave Whitehead flew before all of them anywa

[MalleusEBHC]

BTW, my ex-girlfriend's parents own the land where the Wright Brothers had their shop (now a hotel), so I'm practically an expert on the matter.

My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend knows this guy who knows this kid who's going with a girl who saw Ferris pass-out at 31 Flavors last night and who's parent's own the patent office that Einstein worked at, so if you have any questions about the theory of relativity I'm practically an expert on the matter.

Photos, records, a journal.... Anything!?

[Mulletproof]

"There's nothing but a handful of informally collected eyewitness accounts to confirm Pearse's first flight"

"And I swear officer, I saw a dozen lights flying through the sky and one landed near me! This little grey man with huge eyes stepped out...."
Too bad every last one of the records of this alien abd-- er, historic flight were lost or destroyed.

Re:Who's on First?

[McGarnacle]

Here in America we also celebrate Independence Day on the 4rth of July (unlike many other countries)

You mean, other countries don't celebrate the _American_ Independence day?!

Re:its great.....

[ukryule]

I think we should kick the queen off our 20s and put a right nutter in her place. That'll learn 'em.

Why not just wait for Prince Charles to become king, and it'll happen anyway?

Anyway, I'm guessing the next person to be put on a NZ banknote is going to be Frodo Baggins ...

Kiwis...

[Alan Partridge]

are flightless, any fool knows that!

What do you mean RTFA?

Re:Common knowledge.. at least in NZ.

[pommiekiwifruit]

but we're used to the americans taking the credit for everything

But they did a great job capturing the Enigma machine from the Germans, in that "based-on-a-true-story" movie :-)

The Terrible Secret of Flight

[Anonymous Coward]

As you know, birds do not have sexual organs because they would interfere with flight. [In fact, this was the big breakthrough for the Wright Brothers. They were watching birds one day, trying to figure out how to get their crude machine to fly, when suddenly it dawned on Wilbur. "Orville," he said, "all we have to do is remove the sexual organs!" You should have seen their original design.] As a result, birds are very, very difficult to arouse sexually. You almost never see an aroused bird. So when they want to reproduce, birds fly up and stand on telephone lines, where they monitor telephone conversations with their feet. When they find a conversation in which people are talking dirty, they grip the line very tightly until they are both highly aroused, at which point the female gets pregnant.
-- Dave Barry, "Sex and the Single Amoeba: What Every Teen Should Know"

And if he flew

[infolib]

- so what?? He probably didn't even have onboard internet access [slashdot.org]

Thank god....

[StealthSock]

...now the opening theme to Enterprise has to be changed to include footage of this guy. While the're at it, they can change that godawful song.

Useless to compete with factories?

[Stiletto]

"I had successful navigation within my grasp ... but I decided to give up the struggle as it was useless to try to compete against the men who had factories at their backs."

It seems he was a man ahead of his time. He should be working today, where this situation is standard and accepted...

Bedrock

[Anonymous Coward]

Barney Rubble actually commanded the first flight and this was a human powered aircraft.

Re:The French Did It Before the NZ!!

[skahshah]

This is /.. Nobody here is interested with french achievements. We only care about french failures, smelly cheeses, hairy armpits and cowardly surrenders.

Funny!

[derch]

<disclaimer>
I'm an American.
</disclaimer>

Watching all the dicussion's been funny. No one knows who did it first, but they all know the Americans are jingoists because we too claim to be first in flight .

Italians claim they did it first.
The French claim they did it first.
Kiwis say "No we did it first!"
Now, Brazilians are piping up.

It seems to me that every country is definining the first successful flight based on whatever small step their pioneer took.

What you guys need to do is get together, come up with a firm list of requirements for what makes a flight The First Flight, figure out who did it, then talk Rupert Murdock into producing a special for his TV stations. This definitely sounds like something Fox Television would show.

So if 'Bamboo Dick...'

[KC7GR]

...had been at Kitty Hawk in ... when was it, 1903? Would he have been in the Wright place at the wrong time?

(I wonder how many Karma points that's going to cost me?)

More advanced?

[theophilosophilus]

"Pearse's machine was in some ways more advanced than the first Wright Flyer. ...ailerons for steering similar to those used in modern aircraft. The Wright brothers used "wing warping," twisting the wing to change the flow of air over it."

The article is trying to imply ailerons are more advanced than wing warping? Obviously the author doesn't read slashdot. Air Force to Test Aeroelastic Wings [slashdot.org]