The effort was especially significant in that the brothers built the aircraft almost entirely by themselves and without input from the pioneering aviation community; a photo-postcard of the Wright Flyer inspired the design and Sir Hiram Maxim's book Artificial and Natural Flight provided the theoretical basis.

The aircraft was an open-framework biplane with a three-bay, equal-span, unstaggered wing cellule, organised in a pusher configuration.

By the end of the year, Duigan had made a flight of 1 km (5⁄8 mi) at an altitude of 30 metres (98 feet).

Duigan informed the Department of Defence of his achievements, hoping to claim a £5,000 prize that had been offered in September 1909 for the construction of an aircraft suitable for military purposes.

Museum Victoria also preserves a flying replica of the Duigan biplane, built by Ronald Lewis and flown in 1990.