High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! Sir Edwin Alliott Verdon Roe OBE, FRAeS (26 April 1877 – 4 January 1958) was a pioneer English pilot and aircraft manufacturer, and founder in 1910 of the Avro company. After experimenting with model aeroplanes, he made flight trials in 1907-08 with a full size biplane at Brooklands and became the first Englishman to fly an all-British machine a year later with a triplane on Walthamstow Marshes.