Ronald Eric Bishop

Winston Churchill used one to journey to France in the early months of the war before Dunkirk (Operation Dynamo).

Conceived as an unarmed bomber, it was expected to reach an unprecedented 376 mph, but successfully managed speeds exceeding 400mph (640kmh), beating a high majority of planes at the time, including the Supermarine Spitfire, allowing it to become Britain's fastest aircraft at the time, and became known as the Wooden Wonder.

The Air Ministry had not been amenable to the radical and untried idea of an unarmed bomber, let alone one made of a seemingly obsolete material like wood, and did not fund the design.

The concept of a fast, unarmed bomber was amply justified in practice with very low loss rates.

He lived at Fieldgate on Redbourn Lane (B487) in Hatching Green, Harpenden, then South Holme.