Witnesses interviewed many years afterwards describe observing Pearse flying and landing a powered heavier-than-air machine on 31 March 1903, nine months before the Wright brothers flew.

[4] Biographer Gordon Ogilvie credits Pearse with "several far-sighted concepts: a monoplane configuration, wing flaps and rear elevator, tricycle undercarriage with steerable nosewheel, and a propeller with variable-pitch blades.

"[5] Pearse largely ended his early flying experiments about 1911 but pioneered novel aircraft and aero-engine invention from 1933 with the development of his "private plane for the million", a foldable single-engined tiltrotor convertiplane.

Pearse revealed to the Timaru Post in 1909 that: "From the time I was quite a little chap, I had a great fancy for engineering, and when I was still quite a young man, I conceived the idea of inventing a flying machine.

"[4][13] His father's investment in eldest son Thomas's medical degree at Edinburgh put aside any thought of support for Richard's aspiration to study engineering at Canterbury College in Christchurch.

Instead, at age 21 in 1898, his father set him up with the use of 100 acres (40.5 ha) of Waitohi farmland, upon which, over the next 13 years, he established a workshop, realised his ideas for bicycles, aero engines, flying machines and other contraptions, and kept some 76–286 sheep.

[15] When interviewed by researchers Tom Bradley and Geoff Rodliffe she recalled that quite some time before her family moved from Waitohi Flat to Morven in 1899, her father, Thomas Currie, farmer, and uncle, Alexander McClintock, blacksmith, had walked up to Pearse's workshop one Sunday only to return soon after, saying: "If he gets that contraption in the air he will fall out and kill himself."

[17][18] In later years, Wood told George Bolt and Harold Cederman that Pearse had visited him "in 1901 and 1902, and was shown how to make spark plugs with the central electrode insulated by mica.

Pearse informed the Minister of Defence in May 1945, he'd started to work on this engine from about February 1904, a few months after Samuel Langley's aeroplane failed to fly.

[20] At some point Pearse mounted the earlier two-cylinder engine within the flying machine—a tricycle undercarriage surmounted by a fabric-covered bamboo wing structure.

Some dateable events recalled as occurring about the time of the flights were: immediately after excessive flooding of the Ōpihi River on 23–24 March 1902; on 31 March, preceding April Fools' Day; within a year of the end of the Second Boer War and following the disbanding of the 9th Contingent, New Zealand Mounted Rifles, South Island Regiment, in New Zealand on 21 August 1902; about the time of Eugen Sandow's visit to Timaru, 26–29 December 1902;[26] during Honora Crowley's last teaching year at Upper Waitohi School to September 1903; and before the Big Snow snowstorm from 11 July 1903.

[27][28] With the help of Pearse's brother Warne, the aeroplane was pushed 800 metres up the gravel road to the Upper Waitohi School crossroads, where two dozen spectators gathered to watch the fun.

On the final effort Richard signalled to Warne to pull the propeller to start the engine, while boulders placed in front of the wheels, and volunteers, restrained the plane.

Decades later witnesses provided affidavits describing the plane pitching and wobbling in the air, followed by a final leftward swerve onto the top of a four metre high gorse fence which fronted Pearse's property.

[31]: 73–74  In a letter to Geoff Rodliffe, Casey described the flying machine as having a tricycle undercarriage supporting a wing about 5–6 feet (about 1.5–1.8 metres) above ground and provided an accurate drawing showing the points of takeoff and landing.

Gibson recalled that Pearse had transported his flying machine with a dray and couple of horses from his shed to a terrace field above the Opihi River.

[41] Arthur Tozer, who was about 17 years old at the time, recalled an event similar enough to be the same; that whilst driving a horse-drawn carriage through the Opihi riverbed he saw Pearse fly overhead but thought he had flown on to land on the terrace.

Because of the multiple witness and hearsay accounts, it is considered hard to doubt that Pearse at some time made an attempt to fly off the Opihi River terrace.

[50]: 23 [2]: 67  Mrs. Ritchie, head teacher at Fairview School since 1894, retired from teaching in April 1906, and presented with gifts from her many friends and well wishers, left the settlement.

Diagrams and eyewitness recollections agree that Pearse placed controls for pitch and yaw at the trailing edge of the low-aspect-ratio kite-type permanently stalled wing.

In a 1928 letter to The Star, Christchurch, Pearse summarised his progress in this particular "oval-shaped" monoplane: At the trials it would start to rise off the ground when a speed of twenty miles an hour was attained.

Intrigued by the shed find, Walker also rescued, examined and sorted what was left of Pearse's papers and patents from the trustee's rubbish heap and the yard.

[58][2]: 5–14  Sometime later, during a stopover at Christchurch Airport, Captain John Malcolm, NAC, caught sight of Pearse's dismantled convertiplane in the hangar, and reported the find to aviation pioneer George Bolt in Auckland.

When the horse bolted, the pilotless machine took to the air and flew laterally stable for some considerable distance before landing clumsily with slight damage, surprising all and prompting an impression that it was flyable.

[2]: 13, 64  [12]: 73   They revealed that Pearse had sent a letter to the press on 10 May 1915,[65] stating that “After Langley’s failure in 1903, I was still of the opinion that aerial navigation was possible, and I started out to solve the problem, about March, 1904.

[2]: 13, 64  [12]: 73 With additional evidence researchers later recognised from the 1915 letter that Pearse regarded both his and the Wright Brothers early powered ‘flights’ as tentative efforts.

[2]: 213    The Museum of Transport and Technology (MOTAT) in Auckland, finds 31 March 1903 to be the most likely date of Richard Pearse’s first publicly witnessed powered take-off.

[3]: 21  Early aviators, such as the Wright brothers, viewed flight as being sustained, controlled and powered in a heavier-than-air flying machine to a predetermined location, or "aerial navigation".

Museum of Transport and Technology (MOTAT) in Auckland holds Pearse's last aeroplane, a tilt-rotor convertiplane,[68] his 25 hp four-cylinder engine[69] and metal propeller[70] from the later first flying machine, his powercycle [71] and other original artefacts.

[72] The South Island lakeside town of Wānaka has a line of tiles mounted on the sidewalk by the lake listing important historic world and New Zealand events.