Once flying had begun in England it was not very long before home-built aeroplanes were obtainable. Most of the pioneers built their own machines. The first aeroplane factory for the supply of machines to customers was set up by Mr. T. Howard Wright in two of the arches of the London, Chatham and Dover Railway at Battersea, alongside of certain other arches occupied by the balloon factory of Messrs. Eustace and Oswald Short, who were at that time the official balloon constructors to the Aero Club. Like the Voisins in France Mr. Howard Wright put his skill at the service of others. During the winter of 1908-9 he was engaged in building experimental aeroplanes of strange design, chiefly for foreign customers. His own biplane, which resembled the Henri Farman machine, made its appearance in 1910. He also built a type of monoplane, known as the Avis, for the Scottish Aviation Company, a firm in which the Hon. Alan Boyle and Mr. J. Herbert Spottiswoode were interested. On this monoplane Mr. Boyle made the first cross-country trip in England; the trip lasted for five minutes, and was made over the ground just outside the Brooklands track. It was on this monoplane also that Mr. Sopwith, who understood motor racing, rapidly learned to fly, and a little later, before he became a designer and manufacturer, it was on a Howard Wright biplane that he flew from Eastchurch to a point in Belgium, thus winning Baron de Forest's prize for the longest flight into the continent of Europe. After a time Mr. Howard Wright joined the Coventry Ordnance Works, where he built a machine for the Military Trials of 1912, and he subsequently took charge of the aviation department of the torpedo-boat firm of Messrs. J. S. White and Co. of Cowes.