Sir Geoffrey de Havilland tells the story of how he designed his first aircraft, test flew and designed aircraft for the Royal Aircraft Factory during World War I, before Major George Bulman, the man charge of engine development at the Air Ministry for most of the interwar period, outlines how aero engines developed in the piston era. This episode finishes with Sir Harold Roxbee Cox, later to become Lord Kings Norton, who outlines the increasing amount of knowledge that interwar engineers could call upon to strengthen aircraft and allow them to build larger aircraft and airships.

This is the second episode of Powered Flight, the British contribution to flying was first broadcast by the BBC Overseas Service documentary in 1959. The recording was supplied by the BBC/Getty images, was edited by Mike Stanberry FRAeS and was digitised and released thanks to a grant from the Royal Aeronautical Society Foundation and a bequest from E. H. J. Pallett.