From champion cyclist to aviation pioneer

Press, 26 November 1980, Page 25

From champion cyclist to aviation pioneer

By

JOHN BROOKS

Herbert John Pither, to give him his full name, was born in the English town of Reigate, Kent, the oldest boy in a family of 12. When he was still small his parents came out to the west Canterbury settlement of Waddington, near Sheffield, setting up business, and young Bert was educated at the local school, and later at East Christchurch school.

He was said to be a bright boy, especially good at mathematics, and prominent in sport. He was a good runner at school, and later blossomed into an outstanding racing cyclist. He served an apprenticeship as a cycle mechanic at Kemp’s shop in Victoria Street, and there learned the technique of handling tubular steel — a technique which was to stand him in good stead when his thoughts later turned to flying. First came cycling, and he was a success from the start. In his first race, over 50 miles from Christchurch to Leeston and return, he not only won the event off the limit mark but also broke the record by 5 minutes. That upset the back markers, but very soon Pither was with them, and beating them. In the same year, 1892, he won the Canterbury road title and the next year he was one of four riders to represent New Zealscd at the Sydney championships, where he broke the Australasian 10mile record. After winning five national titles in the, 1895 New Zealand meeting at Napier, he accepted an offer by the Humber company to ride professionally in Australia. While there he beat the then world's champion. A. A. Zimmerman, in a race crammed with international stars. It was a measure of his fitness and ability that

when he was lured out of a retirement of several years he beat both the celebrated Arnsts over a mile at Lancaster Park. That was just before Dick Amst won the Sydney Thousand. Pither had returned to New Zealand about the turn of the century, and set up an engineering business in Christchurch. He was at various times located at premises in Victoria Street. Colombo Street, (by Smiths City Market), and in Manchester Street, where Verkerks is now situated. In 1904, he built his own single cylinder two-seater motor car; there were only six other automobiles in Christchurch, and all were imported.

When Pither built an engine, it was made to last. His expertise, craftsmanship, and thoroughness were renowned in Southland as the result of his work as a marine engineer in his Kelvin Street premises. He built a number of engines for farmers, and in 1908 two of the successful boats at the Bluff regatta were powered by Pither-built engines.

It is not known just what stimulated Bert Pither’s interest to reach for the skies. He knew about the Wright brothers, from Kittyhawk and afterwards, and about other early aviators, such as Louis Bleriot. But he had seen nothing in the way of aircraft, and literature was scarce.

Nevertheless he decided to press ahead with the building of a flying machine. yvith the accent in construction on lightness. He fashioned the frameyvork from tubular steel and the propeller from aluminium, the first of its type successfully used in the yvorld.

The yvings and tail yvere covered in linen cloth, which was painted and

varnished, and’ Pither designed a four-cylinder V engine, which he constructed with infinite care. Pither was a determined man. He once rode a penny farthing along stony roads from Christchurch to Ashburton to see his girl friend. He exhibited the same resolve when he buckled down to constructing his aircraft. His mechanical knowledge and intuition were valuable assets; as a worker with engines he was a perfectionist, and the competitive instinct burned fiercely within him. Not the least of his challenges was the financial one; he went ahead without the benefit of sponsorship — not that he sought it, anyway. His 7.9 m machine weighed 227 kg, which was

only half the weight of the Wright brothers’ "Flyer.” It was remarkable that so many of his ideas on aerial navigation were right on the mark. In mid-1910, the noted Anglo-French aviation pioneer, Henry Farman, said that he believed designers would soon be using metal for aircraft frames instead of bamboo. This evoked a fine turn of phrase from a Southland writer. "It appears.” he wrote, “that Mr Pither has taken time by the forelock.”

Pither’s yvas a midyvinged monoplane, and the yving tips yvere square. He had no ailerons, but yvarped the yvings to achieve lateral stability. Then he fitted a car’s steering yvheel to control the rudder, shock absorbers on the undercarriage

for happy landings, and later, after trials, substituted motor-cycle wheels for the narrower bicycle wheels, for better performance on the sand. He had confidence in his engine after exhaustive tests, and he had perfected control of all moving parts on the aircraft during ground trials. How-

ever, he yvas still in the state of taking a calculated risk, for his fate once he trusted himself to the elements yvas a matter for conjecture. “At that time anyone attempting a feat of this nature yvas regarded as a crank, and subjected to a good,deal of derision,” Mr

Long says. But Pither was a taciturn man; although he yvas tracked down by a reporter a month before the flight he limited his comments to technical features of the design. Pither was not prepared to run the risk of public ridicule. When the time came to carry out a week of trials .at Riverton

beach, he left Invercargill by dead of night with his machine carried on a hors e-drawn covered wagon. On the afternoon of July 5, Pither decided that the time yvas right. The tide was out and the sky clear as he opened the throttle and began to

move along the beach. At 48 k.p.h. he experienced the exhilaration of lift-off and as the ground slipped away beneath him he realised that he yvas indeed airborne — and staying there.

Because it yvas mid-tvin-ter, Pither yvas well yvrapped up to yvard off the cold. All consideration of climatic conditions evaporated as he felt the acceleration after the machine left the ground. He might have been tempted to call out some timeless phrase such as “look at me, ma, I’m flying.” For that yvas, indeed, yvhat he yvas doing, and for I.6km at a height of about 9m he was sustaining and controlling a powered flight. He had achieved his aim, although he was not to know that recognition

yvould be so belated. Verification difficulties in those days yvere very real. Even the Wright brothers were virtually anonymous for three years after Kittyhawk. Bert Pither was in limbo much longer, and but for Morgan Long’s dedication he might have been there yet.

Getting back to earth on that first flight was simplicity itself. After sizing up the surf on his left and the sandhills on his right he discarded any thougnts of heroics, closed the throttle, and floated lazily down.

That was to be the first of several flights Pither made in the Invercargill area in 1910. There is. a record of one flight being 8 km from the point of departure. When Mr Long yvas tracing the fascinating trail 11 years ago he encountered tyvo men in

Invercargill tvho had seen Pither fly. One yvas Gordon Whiting, who likened the “flying ironmongery” to a crane. He was able to describe fairly accurately to Mr Long the design of the machine. The late Mick Barr recalled that he had been cycling at West Plains yvhen Pither’s plane roared overhead. The noise almost made him fall out of the saddle. He recalled that it yvas like a great bird, “rattling and making an ayvful din.”

After establishing the airyvorthiness of his machine, Pither tvent on tour. He exhibited the aircraft at the Caledonian Ground in Dunedin, and’then railed it to Christchurch, where he intended to give a demonstration. Hotvever, a part yvas smashed in transit, so he contented himself by shoyving the aircraft in the King Edyvard Barracks. Spectators paid one shilling for a glimpse of the famous construction.

That admirable publication, the “Weekly Press,” did not carry any photographs of Pither or his plane during their Christchurch visit. Yet, ironically, Pither’s old cycling rival, Dick Amst, yvho yvas defending the yvorld sculling title on the Zambesi River, yvas the subject of a huge pictorial supplement at the same time.

Pither was not to remain in New Zealand much longer. In June, 1911, he shipped his machine across the Tasman to Melbourne, yvhere he suffered the unusual indignity of being fined £l5 for a false value declarations. He set the figure at £2OO, but the magistrate thought it yvas yvorth £5OO.

Mr Long is certain Pither would not have wasted money in shipping his aircraft to Australia if it had not been a success. However, the story of the machine peters but at this

point. Pither lived in Melbourne for the rest of his life, dving there on April 29. 1934.

Pither and his wife were childless, and the fate of the machine is unknown. However, inquiries being made on Mr Long’s behalf in Melbourne might bring some new information to light.

Somewhere in the Australian city there could be a very special engine lying around — the one from the Pither aircraft. The eingineer-inventor built two engines from the same mould in his Invercargill yvorkshop, and one yvas uncovered by Mr Long back in 1958.

That particular discovery had its origins in a shift from Southland to Canterbury made by a man called Pat Lamer. He became a neighbour of Mr Long's in Halsyvell, and yvhen shoyvn a picture of Pither’s machine, he said: “I know yvhere there’s an engine just like that.”

It had been buried by bulldozer in a shallow grave in the Otatara region, and the brass had been ripped off. It yvas a treasure trove to Mr Long. He dug it up, cleaned it down, and eventually presented it to the Museum of Transport and Technology in Auckland. Bert Pither gained a certain amount of renown for his efforts, but they did not make a lasting impression or bring him a fortune — so often the fate of pioneers.

Harry Walker, an Invercargill builder, once told Mr Long he could remember the day he poked his head in. the door of the Pither workshop early in 1910 as Bert yvas working on his flying machine. “Why don’t you put the propeller on top of it? I asked. But Bert told me to get about my own business. When I think back to that day I shake my head. We could both have been millionaires."