Ronald Eric Bishop

Starting in 1938, the outstanding achievement of his design office was the DH.98 Mosquito. Conceived as an unarmed bomber, it was expected to reach an unprecedented 376 mph, but managed 388 mph when first tested - Britain's fastest aircraft at the time - and became known as the Wooden Wonder. The Air Ministry had not been amenable to the radical and untried idea of an unarmed bomber, let alone one made of a seemingly obsolete material like wood, and did not fund the design. But Air Chief Marshal Sir Wilfrid Freeman was interested and boldly championed the concept - through official scepticism the plane became known as Freeman's Folly. However, his confidence was fully justified as it became the fastest wartime aircraft for two and a half years. The concept of a fast, unarmed bomber was amply justified in practice with very low loss rates. The plane was officially announced on 26 October 1942 - de Havilland's first military plane since the Airco DH.10 of the First World War. On 5 May 1943 its high speed prowess was announced.

After the war, Bishop became the design director on the company's board of directors on 27 December 1946 until February 1964, when he retired. Later that year in October, he received the Gold Medal of the RAeS.

In December 1954, Tim Wilkins became head of design at de Havilland.[4]

DH98 Mosquito ML963 of 571 Squadron in September 1944

Aircraft he was responsible for were:

• Flamingo
• Mosquito
• Hornet
• Vampire – the first ever fighter aircraft to exceed 500 mph
• Dove – twin-engined propellor airliner in 1945
• Venom – developed from the Vampire
• Heron – four-engined propellor airliner in 1950
• DH.108 – the first British swept wing jet, mainly designed by John Carver Meadows Frost, and the first British aircraft to exceed the speed of sound
• DH106 Sea Vixen
• Comet – the world's first jet airliner in July 1949 and the first trans-atlantic jet service in October 1958, later used for the design of the Nimrod, and seeing service until 1973