Geoffrey de Havilland
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Sir Geoffrey Raoul de Havilland (b. 27 July 1882, Buckinghamshire - d. 21 May 1965) was one of England's aviation pioneers.
After engineering school, his first interest was in automotive engineering, building cars and motorcycles. He married in 1907 and almost immediately embarked on the career of designing, building and flying aircraft to which he devoted the rest of his life.
His first plane took two years to build and he crashed it during its first very short flight near Litchfield, in Hampshire. A memorial today marks the place. Subsequent designs were more successful.
He joined HM Balloon Factory at Farnborough, which was to become the Royal Aircraft Factory as it realised the importance of planes and shifted some attention away from balloons.
Employed during World War I by Airco, he designed many planes used by the Royal Flying Corps during that period.
After the war, de Havilland bought Airco, renaming it the de Havilland Aircraft Company. One of his roles was as test pilot for the company's aircraft, in all of which he liked to fly.
The company's planes, particularly the Mosquito played a formidable role in World War II and de Havilland was knighted in 1944.
He controlled the company until it merged with Hawker Siddeley Company after crashes of the Comet jet airliner in the mid-1950s.
Two of de Havilland's three sons died as test pilots in de Havilland aircraft. One of these (also named Geoffrey) carried out the first flights of the Mosquito and Vampire and was killed flying the DH 108 Swallow while diving at or near the speed of sound.
De Havilland was related to the famous actresses Olivia de Havilland and Joan Fontaine - his father Charles and their father Walter were half-brothers.
