John Darling
His unaccountable fixation with the principals of extra-aerodynamic flight resulted in many raised eyebrows over the years. For the most part considered a harmless eccentric by his colleagues at Oxford, he was mostly ignored by the scholarly world, which had learned early on that getting into technical conversations was injurious to one’s mental balance.
His research led him to be one of the few individuals to discover the League under their own power. Having found a community that not only found him to be a rather normal addition to the scenery, but also took for granted many of the principles his work advocated, his productivity escalated. Within a year he had successfully modified a small schooner with airborne capabilities. In two years, he took charge of the League’s maritime collection and founded his own company. Work at Darling Shipyards continues to this day.