 Inspired by a visit to Blackpool for England's first ever Aviation Week in October 1909, he returned to Rothesay ready to design and build his own sophisticated monoplane similar to Bleriot's but with an engine built by the Alexander Brothers in Edinburgh that was 4-cylinder, air-cooled and with water-cooled valves.The control system he would design for his aircraft would be unlike anything that had been developed at the time.His wife sewed brown trussore silk for the wings.