An experienced aviator with service in the First World War, Bonney set out to develop a plane with more efficient wings and controls than contemporary aircraft.

Bonney followed the bird principle, abandoned the aileron, or balancing contrivance which airplane designers have always considered an essential feature of stability in the air.

His plane had new features: an expanding and contracting tail, like a blackbird's, for varying loads; variable camber in the wings, so that they could flatten out like a gull's when flying level; a varying angle of incidence to its wings, so that they could turn sideways into the wind on landing...[3] The Gull was assembled at the Kirkham facility in Garden City, New York and Mitchel Field.

Bonney was killed during the maiden flight when the aircraft nosedived into the ground from about 50 feet of altitude, seconds after taking off from Curtiss Field on Long Island.

The newsreel shows the aircraft experiencing a roll to the left which was corrected, and a single oscillation in pitch before nosing straight down into the ground tossing out Bonney.