Ah yes, another report (via slashdot that New Zealander Richard Pearse may well have been flying before the Wright Brothers. Even if true, this remains only a footnote, as the Wright brothers were the ones who actually managed to sell their inventions and thus actually found the aircraft industry. That said, over the last few years Pearse has become a little bit of a cult Kiwi hero.

Possibly the least known of Peter Jackson's films is the spoof documentary Forgotten Silver a which tells us that much of the technology of modern cinema was in fact invented by obscure and now forgotten New Zealander Colin McKenzie, who also went on to make the first full length feature film with sound - in 1908. Jackson was partly inspired by the Pearse story, and by reactions to the Pearse storyin New Zealand. (Forgotten Silver was so well done that when shown on New Zealand television, a great many people did not realise that it was a spoof and took the story seriously).