prototype wearing the titles of
Hunting Percival Aircraft in 1955 The company was formed as Percival Aircraft Co. in
Gravesend in 1933 by
Edgar Percival with Lt. Cdr E.B.W. Leak to produce his own designs. The first aircraft was the
Percival Gull - the prototype was built for Percival by the
British Aircraft Company and production aircraft by
Parnall Aircraft. The company moved to
Gravesend Airport in Kent, where it could build the Gull itself. Restructured in 1936, it became
Percival Aircraft Ltd, and moved to
Luton Airport. The company became part of the
Hunting Group in 1944. Percival, who had resigned from the board to serve in the
Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve during the war sold his remaining interest in the company at that point. From 1947 some internal components of Britain's
Blue Danube atomic bomb were designed and manufactured by Percival Aircraft, in collaboration with the
High Explosive Research project at
Fort Halstead, Kent. It changed its name to
Hunting Percival Aircraft in 1954 and then to
Hunting Aircraft in 1957. In 1960 the company was taken over by the
British Aircraft Corporation (BAC), itself formed earlier that same year through the merger of the
Bristol Aeroplane Company,
English Electric and
Vickers-Armstrongs. BAC later became part of
British Aerospace, now
BAE Systems. == Aircraft ==