Waitohi
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Waitohi, Waitohi Flat and Upper Waitohi are small farming centres from 5 to 8 km south of Temuka, South Canterbury in New Zealand. They are about 30 km north of Timaru. This is the area where Richard Pearse, pioneer aviator, lived and farmed.
In 1903 it was a rich farming area that needed little work to produce a living. It is now a busy farming area where people work hard to make a living.
Waitohi's greatest claim to fame is that it was the site of mankind's first successful mechanised flights. From 1902 to 1904, Richard Pearce built and flew experimental aircraft on his Waitohi farm. The flights were witnessed by many, and were it not for Pearce's (and New Zealand's) isolation, he'd have become an international hero, as he pre-dated the Dec 1903 flights of the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk by up to a year. Pearce did not seek wider audiences nor document his achievements as many of his countrymen derided his efforts, forcing Pearce to work entirely alone.
The eye witness accounts of the dozens of locals have been well documented and are now beyond doubt. Pearce's longest flight covered nearly a full kilometre. Non-flying replicas of his most well known craft can be found in Waitohi and at the Museum of Transport And Technology (MOTAT) in Auckland. A flying replica has been built and appears to work and a virtual replica has been built in the sophosticated computer flight simulator, X-Plane (aircraft available for free download). The X-Plane model can be difficult to fly, but clearly shows the craft as controllable and capable of sustained flight.
Pearce died in obscurity in Christchurch in 1953 at the age of 76.
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