Authors: Paul Chapman
Date Submitted: November 30, 2008
Article Type: Discourse

This year is the centenary of the first powered, and some say controlled, aeroplane flight in the UK. It was made by a middle-aged American who was probably better known at the time for his storytelling and theatrical skills. He also made a few kites and flew them wherever his travelling theater pitched up for a performance.

This self-styled birdman from Birdville, Texas (clearly a self-styled myth) had earlier crossed the English Channel by kite-borne boat in 1903. By 1905 he had flown in his 50-foot wingspan glider. And in 1906 he finally became Chief Kiting Instructor to those British Army chaps. Along the way he had undertaken man-lifting kite trials with the Royal Navy and had dabbled in airships.

This man? Samuel Franklin Cody FRMS [1].

Of course, he was not the first to get airborne in the UK. Surely the honor for that goes to Eilmer of Malmesbury in or around 1008 AD. Nor was he the first airborne kiteist. That may well have been Bristol’s George Pocock, who experimented with man-lifting kites in the 1820s. But Sam Cody and the British Army succeeded where Machine Gun Maxim failed, and particularly when Alliot Verdon Roe nearly flew (his words) from Brooklands in the summer of 1908.

Page Number: 19
PDF Link: Discourse Issue