Frank Barnwell Captain Frank Sowter Barnwell OBE AFC FRAeS BSc ( 1880 – 2 August 1938 ) was a British aeronautical engineer . With his elder brother Harold he built the first successful powered aircraft made in Scotland and later went on to a career as an aircraft designer with the Bristol Aeroplane Company , designing aircraft such as the Bristol Fighter , the Bulldog and the Blenheim . Early life . Barnwell was born in Lewisham in south east London but the family moved to Glasgow the year after his birth he and was educated at Fettes College in Edinburgh , after which he served a six - year apprenticeship with the Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company , of which his father was a partner , between 1898 and 1904 . He attended the University of Glasgow at the same time and received a BSc in naval architecture in 1905 . He then spent a year in America working as a draughtsman for a shipbuilder . Aviation career . In 1907 he returned to Scotland and established the Grampian Motors & Engineering Company in Stirling in partnership with his brother Harold . The brothers had built an unsuccessful glider in 1905 , and between 1908 and 1910 they constructed three experimental powered aircraft . The first lacked sufficient power to fly , but the second , a canard biplane , made the first powered flight in Scotland , piloted by Harold in July 1909 . but was wrecked on the second attempt to fly it . The third , a mid - wing monoplane , was built during 1910 and flown by to win a prize for the first flight of over a mile in Scotland on 30 January 1911 at Causewayhead under the Wallace Monument . In late 1911 Barnwell was hired to work as a designer for a secret department set up by the Bristol and Colonial Aeroplane Company to work on an unconventional seaplane project for the Admiralty in collaboration with Dennistoun Burney , resulting in the unsuccessful Bristol - Burney seaplanes . He then co - designed the Bristol Scout with Harry Busteed . When war broke out in 1914 Barnwell enlisted in the Royal Flying Corps and after qualifying as a pilot at the Central Flying School , Upavon , he joined 12 Squadron RFC but in August 1915 was released from service to become chief designer at Bristol . Here he put his experience of service conditions to use by designing the Bristol Fighter , one of the outstanding aircraft of the war . With the exception of a short period between October 1921 and October 1923 , when he briefly emigrated to Australia to work as an aviation advisor to the Australian Government , he worked as Bristol ' s head of design for the rest of his life , designing aircraft such the Bristol Bulldog and Bristol Blenheim . Barnwell was killed in an aircraft crash in 1938 , piloting a small aircraft he had designed and had constructed privately , the Barnwell B . S . W . . He was thrown into the air when he struck a bump when taking off from Bristol ( Whitchurch ) Airport and then stalled , crashing onto a nearby road Family . Frank and Marjorie ( née Sandes ) Barnwell had three sons who all lost their lives in the second world war : References . Gutman , J . " Bristol F2 Fighter Aces of World War 1 " . Osprey Publishing 2007 . ISBN 978 - 1 - 84603 - 201 - 1