Cody, Leila Marie and Samuel

Dates of birth: Leila Marie: unknown; Samuel: March 6, 1867.

Places of birth: Leila Marie: unknown; Samuel: Davenport, Iowa.

Died: Leila Marie: February 5, 1939; Samuel: August 7, 1913.

Major contributions: Leila Marie: first woman to pilot a heavier-than-air craft; Samuel: inventor of the man-lifting kite and first person to fly an airplane in Britain.

S

amuel Franklin Cody was born Franklin Samuel Cowdery. He learned how to ride, shoot, and rope, and he joined a Wild West show soon after he turned twenty. About that time, he changed his name to Samuel Franklin Cody.

In 1890 Cody went to Europe to per­form. Soon after, he met Leila Marie Davis. By the late 1890s, Samuel and Leila Marie and her children—whom Cody adopted—were touring together. Leila Maire and her children took Cody’s name, and the couple worked together as partners in demonstrations of trick riding and sharp shooting.

At some point, Cody became inter­ested in flying kites. In about 1900 he developed a system he called his “man­lifting kite.” It included a pilot kite mounted at the top of a long cable; sev­eral lifter kites spaced along the cable; and a carrier kite, from which dangled a basket that could carry a person.

FALSE CLAIMS

By changing his name, Samuel Franklin Cody tried to advance his career by linking himself to William "Buffalo Bill" Cody, who led the most famous of all Wild West shows. He even claimed to be the famous Cody’s son until Buffalo Bill’s lawyers forced him to stop. Cody invented many stories about his early life to appear more colorful. Although widely accepted at the time, they are now known to be fictitious.

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Cody told the British army that his kites could be used to send officers into the sky to make observations of enemy troops. As a demonstration, Leila Marie Cody bravely went up in the kite in 1902, making her the first woman pilot of a heavier-than-air craft. Samuel Cody’s kite ascents finally convinced the army—it hired him as its chief kite instructor in 1905. Working at a military base, Cody continued his flights. In one ascent, an army officer was lifted more than 3,300 feet (1,006 meters) above the ground.

Cody also developed an interest in other kinds of flying. In 1905 he built a glider that traveled more than 740 feet (226 meters). Next he tried putting a motor on a kite, but that effort failed. Cody then worked with Colonel John Edward Clapper to build an airship. On

September 30, 1907, they had a successful 12-mile (19 kilo­meter) flight. Five days later,

Cody and Clapper flew the airship to and around London, thrilling thousands of onlookers.

Samuel Cody’s first air­plane flew on October 16,

1908. Although the flight lasted less than half a minute,

Cody became the first person to fly a plane in Britain and an instant national hero.

Cody continued experi­menting with aircraft, trying out new designs each time one of his flying machines crashed. He became a British citizen so that he could partici­pate in exhibitions and races open only to British citizens. On a 1910 flight, he set a record for the longest British flight in terms of both time (almost 5 hours) and distance—more than 185 miles (298 kilometers).

Cody’s next challenge was the reward offered by the Daily Mail news­paper to the first person to fly a circle around Britain, a distance of more than 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers). In 1911, Cody beat eight other pilots to finish first.

In 1913 Cody began designing a sea­plane that he flew successfully. On a later flight, however, the plane ran into mechanical problems. It plunged to the ground, and Cody and a passenger were killed. Britain mourned the loss of their hero, and the army offered to bury him in a military cemetery. Tens of thou­sands of people lined the roads as Cody’s coffin passed to his final resting place. Leila Marie Cody died in 1939.