New Zealand - 1971 - Richard Pearse Medal - Silver - Cased

New Zealand - 1971 - Richard Pearse Medal - Silver - Cased

At the turn of the century, Richard Pearse, a self-educated engineer, was experimentally constructing a heavier than air flying machine, and an engine to power it, in a shed on his farm at Waitohi, near Timaru, in the South Island of New Zealand. During 1903-1904, far removed from other inventors of this period, he completed an aircraft in which, according to a number of eye witness accounts, he succeeded in making a powered flight.

This remarkable man, in spite of his isolated country district background, and with the crudest of materials, made his own lathe for machining aero engine components, a sound reproducing machine, a bicycle with reciprocating pedals and a four-speed motorised cycle, as well as numerous mechanised agricultural machines, including a motorised plough. While others were using flexible wings which could be warped at the tips for side balance, he experimented with and patented an "improved Aerial or Flying Machine" which included such refinements as movable control surfaces for balance, and later he constructed a further experimental aircraft embodying such advanced principles for that time as a variable pitched airscrew, a tilting engine for adjustable angle of thrust and a tail rotor to prevent the aircraft turning with the torque of the engine when in a hovering attitude. He powered this later aeroplane with an ingenious engine readily convertible from a two stroke to a four stroke.

The remains of Richard Pearse's first and this later aircraft are housed at the Museum of Transport and Technology at Western Springs, Auckland. The Museum, with funds from the sale of the medal struck to honour the memory of this gifted New Zealander, proposes to restore this aircraft and house it in a pavilion to be constructed, dedicated to the memory of Pioneers of Aviation in this country.