This design for an aircraft was created by aviation pioneer Richard Pearse (1877-1953). Pearse had built and experimented with aircraft for several years previously, and was reported to have achieved sustained flight at some point during trials on his farm in South Canterbury. An exact date for this successful flight is uncertain, but common consensus identifies it as 31 March 1903.

Pearse patented this design in July 1906 [patent number #21476], and it is held within a later patent application file for an aircraft designed by Pearse in the 1930s [patent number #87637]. Meanwhile his American contemporaries, the Wright Brothers, were also experimenting with flight at the same time and they succeeded in patenting their design before him, on the 22 May 1906.

While Pearse may have flown before the Wright Brothers, only circumstantial evidence exists to corroborate the details of this first successful flight. However his biographer Gordon Ogilivie contends that ‘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’, and remnants of this monoplane are now held at the Timaru Museum.

Archives reference: ABPJ W4832 7396 Box 17 / 87637 <a href="https://www.archway.archives.govt.nz/ViewFullItem.do?code=1842607" rel="noreferrer nofollow">www.archway.archives.govt.nz/ViewFullItem.do?code=1842607</a>

Starched linen paper with diagrams in black ink.