He was six years old when his father died in France of influenza during the great epidemic while serving with the United States Army during the First World War.

While still an undergraduate at Cambridge, he became a well known Grand Prix motor racing driver and competed at events in the UK and Europe.

[6] In 1934 he formed his own motor racing team, personally driving to victory in the South African Grand Prix, held on the 16-mile Buffalo circuit in East London.

[8] He also gave public demonstrations at Brooklands Racing Circuit achieving a speed of 138.7 mph, a record for 5-litre class cars.

In his early 20s, as head of the Straight Corporation Limited, he operated airlines and airfields throughout Britain and ran flying clubs.

[9] He was temporarily deaf, because of this he was grounded and appointed personal air assistant ADC to the Prince George, Duke of Kent.

Through the French Underground, he made his way to unoccupied Vichy France where he was captured and put in a prisoner-of-war camp.

In July 1947, he became managing director and chief executive officer of British Overseas Airways Corporation.

In the United States his cousin, Cornelius Vanderbilt Whitney (1899–1992), was the President of Aviation Corporation of America, which became Pan American Airways.

In 1967, he donated the Whitney Straight Award to the Royal Aeronautical Society to recognise the achievement and status of women in aviation.

[16] He was handsome, normally of a quiet and courteous disposition, Straight nonetheless had one dislike, he hated allusions to his wealth.

[17] In an attempt to prove his own value to himself, he once temporarily abandoned luxury and rode out into the English countryside on an outdated motorcycle with just a few shillings in his pocket.

In the summer of 1933, for example, when he was just beginning to lose his shine on names like Birkin and Campbell, he admitted he was considering giving up everything he owned and spending the rest of his life in a monastery, but Straight's qualities as a driver were genuine.

[17] While Straight was married to Lady Daphne, he had an affair with noted aviator Diana Barnato Walker, the first British woman to break the sound barrier.

[18] Diana was the daughter of Woolf Barnato (1895–1948), another famous racing driver, and the widow of Wing Commander Derek Ronald Walker, who was killed on 14 November 1945 in bad weather while flying.