An American showman turned member of the British Army’s Balloon School, Samuel Franklin Cody used his imagination for aviation, endless courage and engineering virtuosity to become the first man in Britain to fly in an aircraft of his own making and to stand beside the Wright Brothers as the first people to be awarded the Royal Aeronautical Society’s medals.

In this podcast historian Peter Reese tells the story of how a man moved from performing a Wild West Show to becoming an aeronautical pioneer by firstly building man-carrying kites and then to build and fly the first British aeroplane, before showing how, once the War Office declared against constructing aeroplanes in favour of airships, Cody continued to build and race award winning aeroplanes on his own behalf and outfly other aviators of the period.

The podcast was produced by Mike Stanberry FRAeS and recorded specially for the Royal Aeronautical Society’s Podcast series during 2019.