Richard Pearse was extremely shy and quiet and was very hesitant to say that he supposedly flew. He also lived on a small farm in NZ surrounded by a very small population which bore heavy constraint on the rumours ability to spread internationally. Richard Pearse just simply never told people he flew, so nobody knew.

hi! this has become a fairly popular question recently. Not discouraging more discussion here, but check out these threads for previous responses

• Who invented the airplane?

• Who really did invent aviation, Santos-Dumont or the Wright brothers?

• The First Flight: Wright Flyer vs. 14-Bis [Aviation History]

• Is there any merit to the claim that Gustave Whitehead, not the Wright Brothers, was the first to fly a heavier-than-air aircraft?

• comments in AMA We’re curators of early flight from the Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum who have studied and written about the Wright brothers and their aircraft for decades. Ask us anything!

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