British Aircraft Company

Around this time Lowe-Wylde was developing the principle of launching gliders by towing them using a powerful car.

Giving demonstrations around the country, his Bentley, driven by Mrs Green, was able to launch him to a height of 300 ft, thus making hill sites and bungy-launch teams unnecessary.

A public demonstration of this on the Brooklands Race Track's Finishing Straight on 9 April 1931 was filmed by British Pathe and almost ended in disaster when Lowe-Wylde clipped the port wing as he made an impressive landing under a footbridge.

Lowe-Wylde set up the British Aircraft Company in mid-1930, with works in an old brewery at Lower Stone Street, Maidstone.

II was also a primary, but instead of an open girder-type frame, it had a box spar fuselage.

Lowe-Wylde would deliver the gliders personally and demonstrate them at the club's site (and if necessary take the pieces home for repair the same day).

it was towed to 10,000 ft by Sqn Ldr Probyn in his Westland Widgeon G-EBRQ on 18 June 1931, but this was not high enough for the planned flight.

VI by their president, Lt. Col. Hamilton Gault, M.P., which was first demonstrated for the club by Mr Lowe-Wylde on 9 July 1931.

IV and VI, but with a new fuselage and an aircraft-type twin-wheel undercarriage for aero- or auto-towing.

VII sponsored by novelist Barbara Cartland was intended to compete for the Daily Mail cross-channel competition prize, but in trials, flown by Edward Mole and towed by DH.60 Moth G-AAPA of National Flying Services, the combination was unable to get above 6,000 ft, insufficient height for a crossing, so instead a towed flight was made from Maidstone to Reading on 20 June 1931.

(Robert Kronfeld made a successful channel crossing the same day.)

Nicknamed the "Bat-Boat" after similar craft described in a short story by Rudyard Kipling, it was tested in August 1931 by being towed behind a speed-boat on the River Medway at Rochester.

Robert Kronfeld took over the company and started modifying the surviving Planettes to produce a more practical single-seat light aeroplane known as the B.A.C.

The firm moved to a new factory at London Air Park (Hanworth), and became the British Aircraft Company (1935) Ltd.

The Drone was also built under licence at Issy les Moulineaux in France by the Societe Francaise des Avions Nouvelles (SFAN), and at Ghent in Belgium by the Societe Gantoise des Avions sans Moteur.