Mar 31, 2017: Cody Kites

[xoxoxoBruce]

Samuel Franklin Cody, born Samuel Franklin Cowdery in Davenport, Iowa, 1867, joined a traveling circus
as a Wild West showman, lassoing, shooting and riding horses. He adopted the name of Buffalo Bill Cody,
and dressed the part. Eventually, he toured Britain with his own Wild West play called “The Klondyke Nugget”.

He got into building and flying kites seeing the potential to make a buck, and approached the British military,
who were interested in kites, they had a strong advantage over the balloons they used for surveillance, but
not in Cody.



Undaunted, he persisted in his experiments. He sent a man a startling 14,000 feet into the air (bested only
by Blue Hills Observatory in MA, at 15,000 feet), he participated in scientific kiting contests, and in 1903 he
sailed a kite-powered boat across the Strait of Dover. Finally, the military extended a contract to Cody in
1905 and appointed him Chief Instructor in Kiting.



It’s hard to tell how much the kites were used in war. They were used by the Brit Army and Navy prewar,
but apparently not once WW I started, however the French loved them. They became obsolete as flying
technology advanced, so Cody collaborated with the army on developing flying machines. On October 16,
1908, Cody was the first person to pilot a powered airplane in Great Britain.



His contract ended in 1909 but he continued to play with planes until one killed him in 1913.
The Brits buried him with full military honors in a military cemetery.

The fame and fortune he sought eluded him, but he did win respect.

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