Wednesday 13 August 2014


The Cody tree





The pioneering aviator Samuel F Cody who achieved so much in the earliest days of aviation in Britain, primarily from his base at Farnborough was for many years remembered by the preserved tree which he used to tie his aeroplane to when carrying out thrust measurements on his aeroplane.

The inscription below the tree reads.
"Samuel Franklin Cody measured the thrust of his first aeroplane in 1908/9 by tying it to this tree and his flight of 1390 feet on the 16th October 1908 was the first powered and sustained flight in Great Britain" 

By the 1950s the original tree was deteriorating and in 1959 The RAE workshops at Farnborough cast a replica tree in aerospace-grade aluminium alloy and the original tree was replaced by this reproduction.
 
Small sections of the original tree were recovered and are now held for posterity by Farnborough Air Sciences Trust museum.

The replica was eventually moved from its original location and now stands in front of the headquarters of Qinetiq at Farnborough.