Did NZer Richard Pearse beat the Wright brothers in controlled flight?

 No.

A FLYING MACHINE.

NEW ZEALANDER'S INVENTION. 

A young farmer named Mr Richard Pearse, who resides near Temuka, has been engaged for five years on the construction of a flying machine. To a 'Timaru Post' representative he spoke as follows: 

"From the time I was quite a little chap I had a great fancy for engineering, and when I was still quite a young man I conceived the idea of inventing a flying machine. I did not attempt anything practical with the idea until, in 1904, the St. Louis Exposition authorities offered a prize of £20,000 to the man who invented and flew a flying machine over a specified course. I did not, as you know, succeed in winning the prize, neither did anybody else. But I succeeded sufficiently to reialise that there was a future before the flying machine, and to send me on the course which is now within a week or two of complete success. Many of the parts of my machine have been used on the other side of the waters. I do not say, mind you, that my inventions have been copied; it is but natural that different men working on the same ideas should arrive at the same conclusions. But I will say that many of my inventions have come into use on the other side of the world since my own were patented in New Zealand. Almost every portion of my machine is of my own exclusive manufacture. The 25-h.p. petrol engine (in four parts) and radiator are built by myself specially for a flying machine. The lightest 25-h.p. in the world to my knowledge weighs somewhere in the vicinity of 300 lbs. My 25-h.p. water-cased engine weighs only 100lbs, turns the four sheet steel propeller blades at the rate of 800 revolutions to the minute, and under the very severe tests to which I have subjected it, has never shown the slightest sign of failure. My propeller connects direct with the crank shaft, thus obviating the necessity for clutches or any other weighty gear. The whole secret of the flying machine is in its lightness and sustaining power. 

"My machine weighs altogether, with me in it, only 5001bs, as against l000 and 20001bs the weights of the machines on the other side of the world. I have 800ft of sustaining area, as against 500 and 700ft, the sustaining area of the 1000 and 20001b machines in the northern hemisphere. The action of a flying machine is simply that the propeller drives the machine along, and like a boy with his kite, as soon as a certain velocity is attained (in the case of my machine 12 miles an hour) the machine is elevated with its tricycle into the air and sustained there by the 900ft of canvas beneath the body of the machine. Would the machine drop instantly if the propeller stopped revolving? Certainly not; the machine would descend as gracefully as a parachute. I have had several tests. Last week's was my most successful one, the machine rising readily, but tilting gradually at the rear owing to the rudder in that position disturbing the equilibrium. As you can imagine, after five years' labor without a return, and the expenditure of about £300 in raw material, I cannot afford to take any risks with my machine. Next week, if my trial is satisfactory, I will make preparations for the giving of public exhibitions. The whole of the parts of my machine are held together with steel pins, and can be taken to pieces and packed with very little trouble. There is no commercial value in a flying machine itself at present. If I can get my machine right for flying exhibitions throughout Australasia within a short time my fortune is made. I am now getting 800 revolutions a minute out of my propeller, and if necessary I am prepared to put into it an invention I have just completed and am patenting — a 50-h.p. petrol engine weighing a little over 100lbs. The engine itself will be unique in the scientific world, but if I have to resort to it it will delay the exhibiting of my machine for another three or four months."  -Clutha Leader, 30/11/1909.