On 16 October 1908, 118 years before this post, an American-born showman flew an aeroplane for about 1,390 feet (424 metres) over Farnborough Common. It is a short distance by any modern measure. It is also the flight Wikipedia describes as the first recognised powered and sustained flight in the United Kingdom.

The aeroplane

The aircraft was officially called the Army Aeroplane No 1, and later the Cody Flyer. According to Wikipedia, it was built at the Army Balloon Factory in Farnborough by Samuel Franklin Cody, with a single 50 hp Antoinette engine fitted in August 1908 after an earlier Panhard-Levassor engine proved unreliable on the bench. Wikipedia gives the wingspan as 52 ft 4 in (15.85 m).

Cody himself was born in Davenport, Iowa. Wikipedia says he moved to Europe in 1890, and that he took British citizenship on 28 October 1909, a year after the flight.

The flight

Cody's testing built up gradually. Wikipedia describes a series of longer and longer hops, and the 16 October flight was the longest of them. Jean Roberts's biography of Cody on the S F Cody website puts the distance at 1,390 feet, the same figure Wikipedia and the Historic Wings article "The First British Flyer Was an American" both give. Roberts adds that it was at about 25 to 30 mph and lasted 27 seconds. That duration comes from her site alone, so treat it as one account.

Where the sources differ

Two things are worth knowing before you repeat the story.

First, the word "first". Wikipedia calls 16 October the first recognised powered and sustained flight. Historic Wings counts a shorter hop on 5 October 1908 as the first official flight of a heavier-than-air aeroplane in Britain, with 16 October as the longer follow-up. Both agree on the date and distance of the longer flight, and they differ only on how to label what came before it.

Second, a false date. A claim that Cody first flew in May 1908 originated with his friend and biographer G. A. Broomfield. Wikipedia says it was later disallowed and exposed as an outright hoax. That is why this post uses October.

The replica

The Farnborough Air Sciences Trust (the FAST Museum) has a full-size replica of the aircraft on permanent display, in its own words constructed in its original form and materials. Wikipedia says it was built in 2008 by a large team of volunteers and was not designed to fly. Wikipedia's entry on Cody adds that the replica sits about 300 metres from the take-off point. I could not confirm that distance in a second source, so it is Wikipedia's figure alone.

Why it is worth a look

The flight is easy to overlook next to what followed. The distance is less than half a kilometre, in an aircraft whose engine produced 50 hp, over a common in Hampshire. Yet British powered flight starts from hops like this one.

The replica is the closest most of us will get to seeing that machine. If you have been to the FAST Museum, I would like to hear what it is like.

Sources

  • Wikipedia, "British Army Aeroplane No 1": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Army_Aeroplane_No_1
  • Wikipedia, "Samuel Franklin Cody": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Samuel_Franklin_Cody
  • Jean Roberts, "The life of Samuel Franklin Cody": https://sfcody.org.uk/2024/06/14/s-f-cody-aeroplanes/
  • Historic Wings, "The First British Flyer Was an American", 16 October 2012: https://fly.historicwings.com/2012/10/the-first-british-flyer-was-an-american/
  • Farnborough Air Sciences Trust, Samuel Franklin Cody archive page: https://airsciences.org.uk/archive-artefacts-samuel-franklin-cody
  • Images: Royal Engineers official photographer, via Imperial War Museums and Wikimedia Commons (public domain)