AERIAL NAVIGATION

Otago Witness, Issue 3100, 13 August 1913, Page 25

AERIAL NAVIGATION

COLONEL CODY KILLED

COMPANION BADLY INJURED

LONDON, August 7.

Colonel S. F. Cody, the well-known English airman, was killed to-day. His sons Leon and Frank witnessed the accident. Leon had intended to accompany his father, but gave way at the last minute to Mr Evans, of the Indian Civil Service, who is learning aviation.

Leon says that the new hydroplane, which had already been flown earlier in the morning, appeared to double up, the wings shooting upwards, and the whole collapsing when 250 ft above the ground owing to the body of the machine being too heavy for the wings. . Colonel Cody flung himself from the machine before ho reached the ground, where the Barnardo boys were camping. The hydroplane was smashed to atoms. The horrified spectators found that the colonel’s neck was broken, and they helped to extricate from the debris Mr Evans, who was badly mangled. Colonel Leahy sent a message of sympathy to Mrs Cody, and eulogised her husband’s services to the War Office. Tire scene of the accident was the Hampshire coast. The hydroplane in which Colonel Cody was killed was built for the Daily Mail’s £SOOO race. In the first flight to-day it traversed 70 miles. The colonel was carrying passengers at £5 5s each per flight. He jocularly said : “ I may as well make a little pocket-money.” His companion, Mr W. H. B. Evans, was an Oxford cricketer and was captain. In 1904 he joined the Egyptian Civil Service and went to the Soudan.

Before starting Colonel Cody shouted : “ This machine is a beauty and as steady as a rock.’’

Recently Colonel Cody, in criticising a statement at the inquest on the body of Mr Hewitson that a man was too old to fly at 40, said he liad made his first flight at the ago of 47, and that he hoped to be flying when he was 80.

August 8

Colonel Cody’s machine weighed a ton. and was driven by a 100 h.p. engine. The wings spanned 60t't, and their length was 44ft. It is stated that the machine waa travelling at the rate of 50 miles an hour. *

A ugust 10

The King, in a message, expressed his profound regret over Colonel Cody’s death. He said he had always appreciated the late airman’s dogged determination and dauntless courage. His lose would be severely felt at Aldershot, where he had rendered important services to military aviation.

The inquest on the remains of the late Colonel Cody was adjourned till October 15, to enable the experts to report.

Mr S. F. Cody, popularly known as Colonel Cody, was in some ways the most remarkable man in the aviation wor'd. Ho was tin' first man to fly in Great Britain, ami made the first, practical aeroplane in the country. Mr Cody was a good deal older than most aviators, being a man of middle age. Ho had an extraordinary varied career. Born in Surrey, he spent most of hie early life in America, and until a few years ago was an American citizen. He was a cowboy for a time, and one of the finest revolver shots of the day. Twenty years ago he was experimenting in Alaska with man-lifting kites, which ho afterwards induced the British War Office to adopt as part of the army’s regular equipment. Ho was also an actor and theatrical manager for some time, the family touring in a melodrama called “ The Klondyke Nugget.” Mr Cody's success in aviation was reached in the "face of groat difficulty and discouragement. When he had compelled the authorities to recognise his success by winning the War Office prize for the best military aeroplane (which he built himself), a London paper said to him: “Cody’s great success will bo deservedly popular in this country. No one has laboured more strenuously and persoveringly for the cause of British aviation than the American who, a few' years ago, at the Doncaster aerodrome, elected to become an English citizen. Without financial supi>ort, and treated almost as a charlatan bv the press and the public, ho worked for years perfecting his machine in the dreary solitude of Lallan’s Plain, sleeping in the very shed in which the great biplane was housed, and carrying out endices experiments. The outside world knows next to nothing about Cody’s work in aeronautics. He is interested in every branch of the science. Ho helped in the building of the first British dirigible, the ‘ Nulli Secundus,’ and is the inventor of the most efficient man-lifting kite that has ever been designed, and for the patent of which ho received from the Treasury only a month ago a sum of £SOOO. Cody has

won the British Miohelin Cup twice in suo* cession, has received the Royal Aero Club’a special brevet, and has been awarded the club’s silver medal.” LONDON, August 7. The Government has ordered five airships from Messrs Vickers, Sons, and Maxim, who are laying out several acre# at Barrow for aircraft construction. This ■is interpreted to mean that the firm has been guaranteed extensive orders.