Iowa-born Franklin Cowdery spent his early youth breaking horses in Montana and working as a genuine cowboy. In the late 1880s, he entered the touring circuit of Wild West shows, performing sharp-shooting skills and lasso tricks.

For these shows, he deliberately changed his name to Samuel F. Cody, grew out his hair, donned a Stetson, and cultivated a magnificent handlebar moustache. The resemblance to the world-famous William Frederick “Buffalo Bill” Cody was intentional—and highly profitable.

In 1890, Samuel Cody brought his own Wild West show to Europe. He wrote and starred in a wildly successful theatrical melodrama titled The Klondyke Nugget, and he toured music halls across Britain, turning himself into a prosperous and highly popular household name.

While travelling with Forepaugh’s Circus, Sam Cody developed a deep fascination with the mechanics of the air. He began experimenting with complex kites, treating them as serious engineering challenges. By 1901, he’d patented the Cody War-Kite—a massive, incredibly stable winged box kite design. His goal was to create a “man-lifting” system that could lift a military observer high into the air for artillery spotting, serving as a more stable, transportable, and far safer alternative to volatile hydrogen balloons.

Cody’s designs were so impressive that they caught the eye of the British War Office. In 1905, the British Army hired Cody as chief kite instructor at the Balloon Factory in Farnborough.

Cody’s absolute dream was heavier-than-air powered flight. Operating out of Farnborough, he constructed British Army Aeroplane No. 1, an enormous biplane built of wood, canvas, and metal wire, powered by a 50-horsepower French Antoinette engine. On October 16, 1908, on Farnborough Common, Cody taxied his great machine forward. It lifted off the ground and flew 1,390 feet before a sudden turn to avoid a clump of trees caused a crash landing. Though the plane was wrecked, the distance was officially corroborated, sealing Cody’s place in aviation history; Sam Cody became the first person to build and pilot a powered airplane in the United Kingdom. When the War Office short-sightedly terminated his contract in 1909, believing airplanes had no future in warfare, Sam Cody refused to quit. Financially self-reliant, he continued building bigger, faster aircraft, affectionately dubbed "Flying Cathedrals" due to their massive size.

Cody owned a house named 'Valecroft' located in Ash Vale, Surrey, and spent a significant portion of his later life based around the Surrey and Hampshire borders, particularly near the military grounds at Laffan's Plain and Farnborough airfield.

Sam Cody became a naturalized British citizen, won the prestigious British Empire Michelin Cup in 1910, and dominated the British Military Trials in 1912 against international competition. The British public absolutely adored him; Sam was an eccentric folk hero who still rode horses around Farnborough and Ash Vale while wearing his signature cowboy hat and a heavy winter coat.

Tragically, in August 1913, while testing his latest design—the Cody Floatplane—the aircraft suffered a catastrophic structural failure mid-air and broke up over Laffan’s Plain, near Aldershot. Both Cody and his passenger, William Evans (a well-known amateur cricketer), were killed instantly.

To learn more about the adventuresome life of Samuel F. Cody, Surrey's very own flying buckaroo, and to discover some of the anecdotes and vignettes of the Wild West days, and to examine the visionary exploits of an aviation pioneer in greater detail, book this informative and entertaining slideshow presentation given by one of the best public speakers on the circuit.