b'SAMUEL F. CODYThe Incredible, Sometimes StrangerThan True Story Of The Other Cody THE TEXAS (?) COWBOY WHO BECAMETHE FATHER OF BRITISH AVIATION PART 3 By Alan RockmanCODY REINVENTS HIMSELF -a serious interest in Cody\'s proposed manned kites, FROM "TEXAS" COWBOY TOespecially after he made several more successful manned BRITISH AVIATION PIONEER flights, soaring 2,000 feet above the clouds of London.When my time comes, I hope my "I hope at no very distant dateThe Royal Navy purchased quite a few of his war kites,death will also be swift and sudden, to play an important part in theand Cody\'s persistence in approaching the British Armydeath from one of my own aeroplanes.complete conquest of the air."finally paid off when the British Army finally assigned - Samuel Franklin Cody, 1903Colonel John Capper, the head of the balloon factory (Flanagan, Mike, Out West, in Aldershot to work with Cody in developing severalTHE AMERICAN COWBOY WHO WOULDHarry N. Abrams, Inc. New York, 1974, p. 76). war kites, balloons, and airships. The Cody-CapperCONQUER BRITAIN\'S SKIESpartnership was at first promising, but the two men soonAs a prototype test pilot Cody (however) possessed a Depending on when and where it first occurred, whetherbegan butting heads when Capper insisted on Codycombination of instinct, experience and sheer courage that it was on that fictional boyhood ranch in Texas or moredeveloping airships, the military\'s thinking that thewould make him Orville and Wilbur\'s (Wright) equal" likely along the cattle trail, Cody\'s first interest in kitesairplane was a lost cause despite the success of the Wright(Jenkins, p. 161).and their possible military use came while he watched,Brothers just a few years earlier. For his part, Cody was enthralled, as the Chinese cook who kept the chuck wagonresentful that the insistence on producing airships tookCody spent much of 1908 perfecting what was called the would, in his time off, design and fly his homemade kitestime away from his personal desires to develop a manned"British Army Aeroplane No.1. Then on the morning of high above the Western plains (Jenkins, p. 82). The interestaircraft of his own. In addition, he was also irate aboutOctober 16, 1908, just one year and six days after the success was rekindled when, with the outbreak of the Boer War,the compensation, or lack thereof, he received fromof the "Nulli Secundus" flight, he arrived at the Farnborough Cody offered to design and produce observation kitesthe British Treasury for his development of "war-kites"Commons Aerodrome, walked over to his plane, affixed a for the British military. He was initially rebuffed by theand airships. He finally completed what would becomesmall Union Jack to the tail of the craft, then boarded his authorities, but by the time the Boer War ended, a Cody- Britain\'s most famous dirigible, the "Nulli Secundus,"motorized airplane - the first to be developed in Britain, designed unmanned meteorological kite had soared to an(the second-to-none) and on the morning of October 10,opened up the throttle, and the plane slowly rose to a altitude of 14,000 feet. 1907, with Capper in dress uniform and he in his usualposition of 30 feet. He then took the plane up another 10 white dust coat, Cody piloted the "Nulli Secundus" highfeet and proceeded to fly at least a quarter of a mile before Buoyed by the success of the meteorological kite, Codyover London, flying over Buckingham Palace, then on tohe turned back towards the aerodrome. Unfortunately, the began work on kites that could be manned, and justSt. Paul\'s Cathedral, and back to landing at Crystal Palacewind was up and shoved the fragile aircraft towards the a little over a year after the September 1902 flight, he- the "Nulli Secundus" having been in the air for threeground before Cody could make an easy landing - damaging successfully piloted a kite-powered boat across thehours and twenty minutes, flying 50 miles across Londonthe plane.English Channel from Dover to France. This time hisskies, and setting every British aviation record up to that exploit made headlines around the world, captured thetime. Cody was once more the hero in the eyes of bothBut the American Cowboy, still an American citizen imagination of the British populace who found a new herothe British people and more importantly, for his financial(though that would soon change) had made the first in the American Cowboy aviator with the Mid-Westernpeace of mind, the British military. He would now besuccessful powered flight across the Greensward and over (or Texas?) drawl. This time around, his contacts and hisgiven the go-ahead to fly the airplane he had developedthe skies of England (Ibid., p. 162).insistence paid off as the British military began to takeand in doing so would make British aviation history.One would have expected Cody to be acclaimed as the king of Britain\'s skies - heck, even the king and the Prince of Wales knew of Cody and were on record praising him and his accomplishments. But the British military bureaucracy of the time (and ours was no better) seemed to take a dim view of motor-powered aircraft, and as Cody once more literally pounded tables for adequate compensation, they fired him - banning him from the balloon works at Aldershot and at first even refusing to let him keep the very plane he flew that made British Aviation history, "Aeroplane No. 1." The British military soon relented, releasing his one-and-only aircraft to a Cody who, at this time supporting a family of four - his wife had borne him a son named Frank, his only natural son, back in 1895 - needed to find new avenues of income while still developing new aircraft.Cody chose to make three decisions that not only would ctie.monash.eduallow him an almost steady stream of income but would open up the doors to new investment and enable him to develop new aircraft.The first decision was a personal one, one he had been Cathedral, 1909. Cody won his first Michelin Prize in 1910 with areluctant to do for almost two decades, but one he knew would benefit him and his family in the long run. Samuel flight in his new Cody II Flying Cathedral that lasted four hours andFranklin Cody or Franklin Samuel Cowdery was an 47 minutes at a distance of over 185 miles.AMERICAN. An American who took pride in his American background, his American citizenship, and yes, in being 18 October 2021'