THOUGH other pioneers’ claims have been advanced, it is generally accepted that siblings Harold and Frank Barnwell were the Scottish equivalent of America’s Wright brothers and were the first men to get a powered aircraft off Scotland’s soil.

Before them, Glasgow ship designer and academic Percy Pilcher pioneered controllable gliders but never succeeded in getting a powered aircraft to fly – his Hawk glider is in the National Museum Scotland in Edinburgh – while the claims of Preston Watson of Dundee that he beat the Wright brothers with a sustained controllable flight over a distance is not accepted by aviation historians.

So it was on this date 115 years ago that Scotland saw its first flight by a heavier-than-air flying machine, initiating a long history of achievement in the air by Scots and Scottish aircraft.

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In my opinion, the Barnwell brothers should be more celebrated as great Scottish innovators, even if they were born in London, Harold on April 3, 1879, and Frank on November 23, 1880.

They were taken to Scotland as infants and raised and educated here. Their father Richard brought them to live in Balfron when he became director of Fairfield Shipbuilding and Engineering Company on the Clyde.

Harold and Frank were both educated at Fettes College in Edinburgh after which Frank had a six-year apprenticeship at Fairfield, during which he studied at Glasgow University, graduating with a degree in naval architecture.

The two brothers were able to travel widely and Harold had an extended trip to the USA where he is said to have met the Wright brothers after their historic flight. Frank would follow him to the USA and spent a year as a shipbuilding draughtsman.

They both became hugely interested in aviation and were determined to be Scottish pioneers of flying.

Returning home to Balfron, they built their first glider in 1905, and a year later they opened one of Scotland’s first motoring garages, the Grampian Engineering and Motor Company at Causewayhead in Stirling. All the time they were working on building an aircraft and an engine to power it, starting with a motorbike engine and developing it.

Their first prototype built in 1908 had insufficient power to get off the ground, but the second was a biplane similar to the Wright brothers’ Flyer. It was on Wednesday, July 28, 1909, in a grassy field in the shadow of the Wallace Monument that Harold clambered aboard and started the engine.

This time the aircraft took off rapidly under its own power and such was its velocity that it tilted upwards. It flew about 80 yards at a maximum height of 13ft before a crash landing in which Harold was unhurt apart from a few cuts and bruises though the aircraft itself was damaged but able to be repaired.

According to aviation history writer Robert Jeffrey in his book Scotland’s Wings: “Unlike many claims of flight which, according to one, perhaps cynical, historian I spoke to, consisted of a lucky bounce or two over a bumpy grass strip that launched the test craft a couple of feet in the air before a swift return to terra firma, there is no doubt that the Bramwells’ effort took to the air.”

In 1910, the brothers set about building their third aircraft, this time a monoplane similar in design to the Type XI flown by Louis Blériot across the English Channel the previous year. The difference with this new aircraft was that it had an engine that produced 40bhp which the brothers were confident was enough power.

In January 1911, during a period of mild weather, Harold again took off at Causewayhead and this time piloted the monoplane for a flight of more than a mile, winning the £50 price offered for such an achievement by the Scottish Aeronautical Society.

Later that year, the brothers were tempted south of the Border by an offer to become pilots and aircraft designers. Harold attended the flying school at Brooklands, later famous as a motor racing venue, and gained pilot’s licence number 278.

He went to work at the Bristol aircraft company, before moving to Vickers at Brooklands as an instructor and test pilot. It was while test-flying the Vickers Vampire night fighter over Kent that Harold is believed to have become unwell, leading to his fatal crash on August 25, 1917, at the age of 38.

Frank Barnwell enjoyed a stellar career as an aircraft designer, starting with Bristol where he co-designed the Bristol Scout. He trained as a pilot and joined the Royal Flying Corps in 1915, but after seeing active service on the Western Front, he was released to become chief designer for Bristol where almost immediately he designed the successful Bristol F2 Fighter using lessons he had learned from fighting the Germans.

He worked at Bristol for the rest of his life, apart from a spell advising the Australian government on the development of that country’s air force. For his work during the First World War, he was awarded the OBE and Air Force Cross.

Barnwell designed two of Britain’s most famous military aircraft, the Bristol Bulldog and the Bristol Blenheim light bomber – the latter was a mainstay of the RAF during the first years of the Second World War. It had just entered service when Frank was killed when a light aircraft of his own design stalled on take-off and crashed on August 2, 1938.

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All three of Frank Barnwell’s sons, Pilot Officer John Barnwell of 29 Squadron, Flight Lieutenant Richard Barnwell of 102 Squadron and Pilot Officer David Barnwell DFC of 607 Squadron, were killed on active service in 1940 and 1941. They were aged 20, 24 and 19 respectively.

Having won his Distinguished Flying Cross for downing aircraft attacking Malta at night, David Barnwell was shot down over the Mediterranean.

There is a memorial to the Bramwell brothers and their Scottish “first” beside the Causeway roundabout in Stirling. A memorial plaque was unveiled in Balfron on the centenary of that pioneering flight in 2009.