English: Aviation in Britain Before the First World War

Cody aircraft mark III outside the shed on Laffan's Plain with Cody working on it and a good number of civilian and army onlookers observing. Cody built this aircraft for the Daily Mail Circuit of Britain race for which there was a £10,000 first prize. The mark III was smaller and lighter than Cody's previous aircraft with this compensating for the relatively low power output of the Green engine. It followed a similar design and was fitted with twin rear rudders.

There were 32 entrants for the race from Britain and Europe with 21 actually starting the race. Cody was the only pilot / designer / constructor in the race with many of the other entrants being internationally known, professional pilots backed up by factory teams of mechanics, engineers, riggers and the like. The circular route was around 1000 miles in length beginning on the 22nd July 1911 at Brookland's with pilots stopping off at places such as Hendon, Harrogate, Newcastle, Edinburgh, Glasgow, Carlisle, Manchester, Worcester, Bristol, Weston-super-Mare, Exeter and Salisbury Plain, and staying overnight when necessary. Most of the entrants had to pull out due to crashes or mechanical problems with the eventual winner being the French Pilot Beaumont (the pseudonym for Lieut. Conneau of the French Navy) in a Bleriot monoplane, on the 26th July.

Over Yorkshire Cody suffered a broken radiator pipe and cracked petrol tank, both of which forced him to land with him staying overnight in Harrogate for repairs. When attempting to land in fog in the Tyne Valley Cody crashed damaging the undercarriage and propeller. He had replacement parts brought up from Laffan's Plain and continued the race even though he had no chance of winning. He performed several flying exhibitions on route and arrived at Brookland's fourteen days after he had started having flown around 2000 miles. The event was massively popular with hundreds of thousands of people watching the event and because of his spirited performance Cody received much acclaim from the press and public.

It was also in this aircraft that Cody won his second and third Michelin trophies. The £400 Michelin Trophy No. 1 (2nd series), for the fastest completion of a 125 cross country flight (despite his quickest time being a relatively slow three hours, due to mechanical problems, Cody won because none of the other eight entrants could complete the course) and the £600 Michelin Trophy No. 3 (1st series) for flying the furthest distance in a closed circuit setting new British time and distance records as he did this. This machine was crashed and badly damaged on the 3rd July 1912 when it hit a tree whilst the pilot Major H D Harvey-Kelly was landing.