Richard Pearse was a New Zealander inventor and aviation pioneer who's recognized as the first person in New Zealand to fly, and was actually one of the very first in the world to successfully fly a heavier-than-air aircraft.

He is reputed to have flown his home-built aircraft several months before the Wright Brother's 1903 flight, but Pearse himself acknowledged that his first controlled flight occurred in February or March of 1904, and thus did not beat Orville and Wilbur Wright, who flew on December 17, 1903. He put little effort into documenting his achievements and left little in the way of detailed records to corroborate his accomplishments. Unlike the Wright brothers who made certain their test flights were carried out before witnesses and officially recorded all test flights, Richard Pearse worked on his own, in secret, and avoided publicity. The locals who observed some of his attempts to fly his strange contraptions, often ridiculed him and his work, calling him "Mad Pearse" and "Bamboo Dick." The latter nickname was a reference to the bamboo wing structure he utilized in an early plane design.

Regardless of the precise date of his first flight, his aircraft designs were truly remarkable. He held patents for an innovative bicycle, aircraft controls, and even a vertical take-off and landing airplane.

Full or original name at birth: Richard William Pearse

Date and place of birth: December 3, 1877, Waitohi Flat, near Temuka, South Island, New Zealand

Date, place and cause of death: July 29, 1953, Sunnyside Mental Hospital, Christchurch, New Zealand (Heart attack)

Parents
Father: Digory Sargent Pearse
Mother: Sarah Anne Pearse