The Badminton crashed a month before the race, which gravely concerned Russell until the reason was revealed to be a seized engine.
Russell was invited to take a flight in the Bagshot, and was alarmed to see the wings twisting during control use, a problem that led to the abandoning of the design.
He developed a new method of separately calculating bending and torsional stresses, which later led to a new single-spar monoplane wing design that was granted a patent.
In 1935 the first of the RAF Expansion Schemes was launched, and Bristol won two contracts for monoplanes, the Bombay troop-carrier and the Blenheim bomber.
Barnwell and his two chief assistants, Leslie Frise and Russell, looked to address the Bagshot's wing problems in the Bombay, and over-designed it to ensure flexing would not be an issue.
It was the result of contest to produce the fastest four-passenger plane in Europe, and therefore did not require the higher weights and ruggedness of the Bombay.
In 1941 the Air Staff placed a development contract for a long-range, 100 ton, 300 mph heavy bomber with a bomb load of 80,000 lbs.
The aircraft was designed to fill Barnes Wallis' concept of the "Victory Bomber", which would drop huge "earth quake bombs" that would destroy dams and other power plants even with a near miss, and thereby render Germany unable to run its industry.
Frise and Russell started work on such a design, featuring extensive streamlining for lower drag and better range, powered by eight Centaurus engines, paired to drive four propellers.
In February 1944 this work was able to be re-used when the Brabazon Committee ordered a very large transatlantic airliner to carry 90 passengers for 5,000 miles in 17 hours, all with sleeping accommodation.
In 1947 Bristol won a design competition for "An airliner to required to carry thirty six passengers on routes to South Africa, Australia and the Far East."
However, at this point the de Havilland Comet suffered a series of mysterious crashes, and the ensuing investigation discovered extensive metal fatigue problems.
Russell felt that British European Airways' (BEA) specification was too small, so the Type 200 was closer in size and range to the Boeing 727, which later sold almost 10 times as well as the Trident.
[2] The team, led by Bill Strang, Mick Wilde, Doug Thorn and Douglas Vickery, had produced a number of designs when they learned of similar efforts at Sud Aviation under the Super-Caravelle project.
Russell developed a friendship with his counterpart at Sud, Louis Giusta, which aided the eventual formation of the Concorde project.