Bert Pither

He was the second eldest of 12 children of John and Lydia Pither, who emigrated to Canterbury on the Crusader arriving on 12 October 1875.

[3] Further races followed including a one-mile handicap organised by the Pioneer Cycle Club at Lancaster Park on 1 January 1892.

[4] In April that year Pither broke the New Zealand 50-mile road cycling record in a time of 2 hours 59 minutes 30 seconds.

[5] The following year he broke the 100-mile record in a time of 6 hours 39 minutes and started competing in the events for the right to represent New Zealand in a race at Sydney in 1894.

[13] Pither flight-tested this craft at the western end of Oreti Beach off Bay Road for a week in mid-winter 1910.

In November Pither shipped the aircraft to Melbourne, Australia on the Manuka where he intended to offer it to the Federal Government.

In January 1912 at Invercargill, Paratene and a Mr McKenna of Belfast began construction on another aircraft based on Pither's design.

However this self-report of a one-mile flight during a short weather window on 5 July has some convincing aspects, including the suggestion the novice pilot got a considerable scare from the unexpectedly different behaviour of the craft once airborne.

In 2003, the Croydon Aircraft Company at Mandeville, near Gore, produced a replica of Pither's Bleriot-style monoplane, which microlight veteran Jerry Chisum flew.