The Flying Cowboy: The Story of Samuel Cody, Britain's First Airman

Several biographies of the colourful "Colonel" Sam Cody - cowboy, showman and aviator - have been published over the years. Reese has produced the best to date: readable, accurate and up to date with recent discoveries.Samuel Franklin Cowdery was an extraordinary character who lived larger than life. He was born in America, grew up a cowboy, became a sharpshooting, lasso-wielding, horse-riding showman, changed his name to Cody in imitation of the original and famous Buffalo Bill Cody and married. Several brushes with Buffalo Bill's lawyers later we find him in Europe, racing cyclists on his horse for a living, before moving to England, despatching his tragic wife back to America and picking up with a new family, before embarking on a successful stage career. Blink and you'll miss his transition to pioneer aeronaut. First manned kites, then the British Army's first airships, then the first British-built aeroplane to fly - the British Army Aeroplane No. 1, all the while in his cowboy gear and bright red shirt riding a white stallion around the Army base where he was employed by his increasingly exasperated commanding officer. Sacked along with his fellow designer J W Dunne by a bureaucratic madhouse, he went on to consort with royalty and win prize after prize, eventually becoming a British citizen. Just a few years later in 1913 he was killed when his latest aeroplane broke up in the air.Truly this man was larger than life and his life was stranger than fiction, you couldn't make it up. An astonishing and riveting story, told by the best raconteur yet. And then there are the aircraft drawings, accurately prepared by John Roberts. they add a dimension not available in other recent works and, along with the historically comprehensive and good-quality photographs and other illustrations, they cement this as Cody's definitive biography.

An excellent history of early aviation about one of the more obscure pioneers, not to be confused with Buffalo Bill, he was William Cody.

Thorough biography of this early pioneer of aviation.

Amazing read its good to see a British man was the first unmanned flight not the Wright Bros