Errol W. Martyn. A Passion for Flight: New Zealand Aviation Before the Great War. Volume 1: Ideas, First Flight Attempts and the Aeronauts 1868-1909. Upper Riccarton: Volplane Press, 2012. I mostly bought this for the two pages on the 1909 phantom airship scare, but it also has plenty of fascinating material on early New Zealand airmindedness (of which there was not a little). In addition, there's a full discussion of the claims that Richard Pearse should be regarded as the first to achieve powered, controlled, heavier-than-air flight: Martyn, who is probably the leading expert on early aviation in New Zealand, thinks not.

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