Rare Royal Engineers Photograph (Balloon & Man-lifting Kite). c.1905 (Chris Balm Early Aviation & Motoring Items)

Rare Royal Engineers Photograph (Balloon & Man-lifting Kite). c.1905

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Rare Royal Engineers Photograph (Balloon & Man-lifting Kite). c.1905

Rare Royal Engineers Photograph (Balloon & Man-lifting Kite). c.1905 (Detail)

Rare, montage photograph comprising of a number of different images showing the various ranks and roles of the British Royal Engineers regiment. The images include an early hydrogen observation balloon and one of Col. Cody's man lifting kites. Dating from around 1905.

This original sepia photographic image was produced by "C. Knight & Son. Photos. Aldershot." (Aldershot was the home of the Royal Engineers from between 1892 & 1904). The photograph is still attached to it's original mount. Overall dimensions (including mount) : 397mm x 346mm. Image dimensions : 287mm x 221mm. Good condition (some ageing to mount).

Military aviation began in the United Kingdom in 1878 when an observation balloon and the No.1 Balloon Company of the Royal Engineers was created. In 1904 the Royal Engineers and the American Wild West showman Samuel Franklin Cody carried out experiments with his man-lifting kites. He was appointed Chief Instructor in Kiting at the Balloon School in Aldershot. He formed two kite sections of the Royal Engineers which later became the basis of the Air Battalion of the Royal Engineers and then Royal Flying Corps in 1912. In 1907, Cody and the British Army built Britain's first military airship, the "Nulli Secundus" and on the 16th October 1908 he became the first person to make a controlled powered flight in the U.K. using an aeroplane of his own design, the "British Army Aeroplane No 1".

For more information on S.F. Cody, please click on the link below :

Samuel Franklin Cody

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