Wolverhampton,
Bournemouth, and Lanark. It was on June 7th, 1910, that he qualified for
his brevet, No. 9, on the Cody biplane.

He built a machine which embodied all the improvements for which he had
gained experience, in 1911, a biplane with a length of 35 feet and
span of 43 feet, known as the 'Cody cathedral' on account of its
rather cumbrous appearance. With this, in 1911, he won the two Michelin
trophies presented in England, completed the Daily Mail circuit of
Britain, won the Michelin cross-country prize in 1912 and altogether, by
the end of 1912, had covered more than 7,000 miles with the machine.
It was fitted with a 120 horse-power Austro-Daimler engine, and was
characterised by an exceptionally wide range of speed--the great
wingspread gave a slow landing speed.

A few of his records may be given: in 1910, flying at Laffan's Plain in
his biplane, fitted with a 50-60 horsepower Green engine, on December
31st, he broke the records for distance and time by flying 185 miles,
787 yards, in 4 hours 37 minutes. On October 31st, 1911, he beat this
record by flying for 5 hours 15 minutes, in which period he covered
261 miles 810 yards with a 60 horse-power Green engine fitted to his
biplane. In 1912, competing in the British War office tests of military
aeroplanes, he won the L5,000 offered by the War Office. This was in
competition with no less than twenty-five other machines, among which
were the since-famous Deperdussin, Bristol, Flanders, and Avro types,
as well as the Maurice Farman and Bleriot makes of machine. Cody's
remarkable speed range was demonstrated in these trials, the speeds of
his machine varying between 72.4 and 48.5 miles per hour. The machine
was the only one delivered for the trials by air, and during the three
hours' test imposed on all competitors a maximum height of 5,000 feet
was reached, the first thousand feet being achieved in three and a half
minutes.

During the summer of 1913 Cody put his energies into the production of
a large hydro-biplane, with which he intended to win the L5,000 prize
offered by the Daily Mail to the first aviator to fly round Britain on
a waterplane. This machine was fitted with landing gear for its tests,
and, while flying it over Laffan's Plain on August 7th, 1913, with Mr W.
H. B. Evans as passenger, Cody met with the accident that cost both
him and his passenger their lives. Aviation lost a great figure by his
death, for his plodding, experimenting, and dogg