Cody aircraft mark IC, Cathedral RAE-O14

Aviation in Britain Before the First World War

Cody aircraft mark IC (Cathedral - so named because of its size and the size of the hangar it required and the katahedral (lower at the wing tips) arrangement of the wings) with Cody and Lela Cody aboard. The most important change made with this mark was moving the pilots seat to in front of the engine. The aircraft was altered several more times, note that there are no balancing planes on the wings and no sign of the rudder behind the front elevator. A crowd of civilian and military onlookers is stood in the background. This was taken just before or just after Lela became the first women from the British Empire or the United States of America to fly. As well as being a passenger in his aircraft Lela flew in Cody's kites.

Lela Cody's real name was Elizabeth King nee Davis. When her and Cody met (1890 / 1891) he had recently split up from his American wife Maud Lee and she was married with four children Lizzy, Edward, Leon and Vivian. Like their mother her children were soon enamoured with Cody, the three boy's joined Lela and Cody on stage with Leon and Vivian taking the name Cody and pretending to be his sons, whilst Edward took up the name Leroy and pretended to be Lela's nephew. Cody's only natural son was Frank. This is very different from the story that both Cody and Vivian told. In their version Cody met Lela when he was transporting horses from America to Britain to be sold to her father (he actually was a horse dealer, who numbered the Royal Stud amongst his clients). Cody's lack of a divorce caused problems for his family, as he died intestate, allowing Maud, after a very lengthy legal battle, to make a successful claim for part of his estate.

Particularly with his earlier aircraft Cody made constant adjustments to the arrangement of the flying surfaces, often after crashes, in order to obtain better performance and handling. These changes mean that identifying specific sub-marks of Cody aircraft can at times be very difficult, it should also be remembered that because of this constant evolution of his aircraft Cody would probably not have classified them in such a detailed manner.

It was in this aircraft that Cody made the first passenger carrying flight in Britain (Colonel Capper on the 14th August 1909) and several record breaking flights including one cross-country of around forty miles and lasting an hour and three minutes, passing over Aldershot, Camberley, Fleet, Farnham and Farnborough on the 8th September 1909. This was the furthest cross-country flight that had ever been made, anywhere in the world and the longest flight in time and distance in the British Empire. Only six other pilots and four types of machine had flown over forty miles anywhere in the world and all of these were aerodrome circuits not cross-country flights.