is
fixed over the centre of the upper plane.' The tail-piece and principal
rudder were fitted behind the main body of the machine, and a horizontal
rudder plane was rigged out in front, on two supporting arms extending
from the centre of the machine. The small end-planes and the vertical
plane were used in conjunction with the main rudder when turning to
right or left, the inner plane being depressed on the turn, and the
outer one correspondingly raised, while the vertical plane, working in
conjunction, assisted in preserving stability. Two two-bladed propellers
were driven by an eight-cylinder 50 horse-power Antoinette motor. With
this machine Cody made his first flights over Laffan's plain, being then
definitely attached to the Balloon Section of the Royal Engineers as
military aviation specialist.

There were many months of experiment and trial, after the accident which
Cody detailed in the statement given above, and then, on May 14th, 1909,
Cody took the air and made a flight of 1,200 yards with entire success.
Meanwhile A. V. Roe was experimenting at Lea Marshes with a triplane
of rather curious design the pilot having his seat between two sets of
three superposed planes, of which the front planes could be tilted and
twisted while the machine was in motion. He comes but a little way after
Cody in the chronology of early British experimenters, but Cody, a born
inventor, must be regarded as the pioneer of the present century so
far as Britain is concerned. He was neither engineer nor trained
mathematician, but he was a good rule-of-thumb mechanic and a man of
pluck and perseverance; he never strove to fly on an imperfect machine,
but made alteration after alteration in order to find out what was
improvement and what was not, in consequence of which it was said of him
that he was 'always satisfied with his alterations.'

By July of 1909 he had fitted an 80 horse-power motor to his biplane,
and with this he made a flight of over four miles over Laffan's Plain on
July 21st. By August he was carrying passengers, the first being Colonel
Capper of the R.E. Balloon Section, who flew with Cody for over
two miles, and on September 8th, 1909, he made a world's record
cross-country flight of over forty miles in sixty-six minutes, taking
a course from Laffan's Plain over Farnborough, Rushmoor, and Fleet,
and back to Laffan's Plain. He was one of the competitors in the 1909
Doncaster Aviation Meeting, and in 1910 he competed at