Nicholas Comper was born on 29 April 1897 in West Norwood, London, the son of church architect Sir John Ninian Comper and Grace Comper (nee Bucknall). He was educated at Dulwich College, where he was a pupil from September 1911 until July 1914. After leaving Dulwich College, he joined the Aircraft Manufacturing Company (Airco) as an apprentice, leaving the company in 1915 to join the Royal Flying Corps, and was trained to fly at Castle Bromwich Aerodrome, where he gained his RAeC Aviators Certificate, No.3083, on 27 May 1916, flying a Maurice Farman Biplane. He joined No. 9 Squadron RFC, and was posted to Morlancourt in France, flying B.E.2c aircraft on reconnaissance missions.

After the war he remained in what in 1918 had become the RAF. In 1920 he spent a year at Jesus College, Cambridge University, reading aerodynamics. He spent time with RAE Farnborough, and in October 1922 he was posted to RAF Cranwell to train engineering officers.

While at Cranwell, he and some staff and pupils formed the Cranwell Light Aeroplane Club (CLAC) in 1923, his first design being the CLA.1 (CLA for Cranwell Light Aeroplane). This was dropped before completion in favour of the design of a 2-seat lightplane to compete in the Air Ministry competitions which were to be held at Lympne, which went on to win the competition Reliability Prize of £300. The following year in the plane's successor, the CLA.3, was second overall in the speed trials at the same event. The 1926 Lympne Trials called for a dual controlled 2-seater and for this Comper designed the CLA.4 biplane.

The 1926 season also marked the end of the CLAC’s existence. The Boys’ Wing had moved to Cranwell in the first instance because of the lack of permanent accommodate at Halton, but by early 1926 Halton was ready and the transfer of the Boys’ Wing, or No 4 Apprentices Wing as it was now formally known, could not be delayed further. Nicholas Comper remained behind in a supernumerary capacity, presumably to wrap-up the season’s work, and it would not be until early November that he was posted to Felixstowe on the staff of the Marine Aircraft Experimental Establishment.

Comper's design of the CLA.3 was restricted by the confines of the competition rules which limited its size. He was to have used the unique new lightweight engine of his close colleague Douglas Pobjoy in his second CLA.4, had It been ready, and he realised its potential if used with a revised version of his CLA.3. It had become evident that to pursue his gifts as an aeronautical engineer he would need to leave the RAF and enter the business world, and in March 1929, having reached the rank of Flight Lieutenant, he resigned his commission to pursue aircraft design ambitions.

The Comper Aircraft Company Ltd was formed In March 1929, and started operations at Hooton Park airfield near Liverpool, the owner of Ihe airfield, G. H. Dawson, becoming the company chairman, with Comper as managing director and chief designer. Pobjoy moved in next door to Comper and formed Pobjoy Airmotors there In February 1931. Nick’s brother Adrian was a director of both companies. This was a late start due to delays in development of the Pobjoy engine, as the prototype Comper CLA.7 Swift had been ready to fly in the previous December. Comper couldn't wait for the Pobjoy engine however and the prototype Swift was fitted with a 40 h.p. ABC Scorpion horizontally-opposed 2-cyl engine. After successful tests, seven more aircraft were built in 1930 powered by a 50 hp Salmson A.D.9 radial engine.

Due to the delay in the Pobjoy, Comper had become interested in the American Velie radial engine of some 80 h.p., manufactured by the Velie Motor Car Company of Moline, Illinois, USA. Adrian Comper set out for the Detroit Aero Show to meet Mr. Velie, while on a periodic visit to his American wife's family. This led to a meeting with John A. Love, chairman of Allied Aviation Inc, of St. Louis. Sensing that Allied Aviation would be interested in an enclosed two-seater side-by-side version of the Swift for the U.S. market, Nick Comper came up with plans for the Aircar. Allied Aviation was about to merge with French aeroplane company, and Love suggested a "mutuality of interests" with the Comper Aircraft Co. However, autumn of 1929. the Hatry scandal shook then London Stock Exchange. Shortly after, John Love cabled Adrian to forget any plans for a merger - a few days later came the Wall Street Crash. Trials with Pobjoy P radial engine for use in air racing resulted in all the subsequent aircraft being powered by the Pobjoy R. The last three aircraft (sometimes called the Gipsy Swift) were fitted with de Havilland Gipsy engines - two with 120 h.p. Gipsy Major III and one with a 130 h.p. Gipsy Major. Postwar, surviving Swifts continued to compete successfully in UK air races into the mid 1950's. In fact, probably no other aircraft built in such small numbers has ever broken so many records and won so many prizes. Amongst these achievements one of the most outstanding was Charles Butler's record 9 days 2 hours flight to Darwin, Australia in October 1931.

Swifts were entered in all the major air races of the period, competing in every King's Cup Air race from 1930 to 1937. In the 1933 race no fewer than seven Swifts were entered. They won four of the qualifying heats and the G-ABW flown by Flight Lieutenant E.C.T. Edwards took second place overall. In the 1930s the Kings Cup Air Race drew considerable national attention. The results would be published on the front pages of the national newspapers and the pilots became famous figures in their own right. As a pilot himself, Comper loved to race his own Swifts and one year was placed sixth in the Kings Cup Air Race.

But by March 1933 the Comper Aircraft Company was struggling and left Hooton, transferring production to Heston, where it was thought more modern production facilities would help production of the Mouse, the Kite and the Streak. Heston at the time was the hub of light aviation activity. The company strategy didn't work, in spite of the many frantic changes to its board of directors in the final months and it proved to have been the company's last desperate throw of the dice. By August 1934 Comper had lost control of his own company. It folded and was liquidated, the Heston Aircraft Company being formed to acquire its assets.

Of the planes he designed and built, only the Swift had any financial success. His other work. though technically brilliant and high performance, proved uncommercial. In August 1934, Comper joined with Francis R. Walker to form a design consultancy named Comper and Walker Ltd, based in the Strand, central London, a location which proved to be far beyond both their financial means. He persuaded Robert Blackburn, head of the Blackburn Aircraft Company, to appoint him technical advisor and chief designer of a project to build a helicopter designed by Oskar Asboth. Comper had some expertise in this field, as in 1932 he had worked with Juan de la Cierva on a single seat autogiro, the Cierva C.25, using a Swift airframe. The project was not a success nor were his next moves.

Comper worked on airliner projects he called Dominion and Commerce. In December 1936, he renamed the company Comper Aeroplanes Limited, to develop those concepts. In 1938, working from his home in Walton-on-Thames, Comper designed a new training aircraft named the Comper Scamp. The single-seat trial version named the CF.1 Fly was built by students at the Chelsea College of Aeronautical Engineering at Brooklands Aerodrome.

On 17 June 1939, in Hythe, Kent, Comper was fatally injured in unusual circumstances. He had been a practical joker, and after he was stopped lighting fireworks in a public house, he went outside. As he bent down to light the firework, a passer-by enquired what he was doing, his reply was that he was an IRA man and was going to blow up the town hall, prompting the passer-by to knock him down. Comper hit his head on the kerb, suffered a cerebral haemorrhage and died later in hospital, aged 42.

1. https://www.nickcomper.co.uk/
2. Ancestry.com
3. Air Britain Archive 2003/4 (Air-Britain Publications)
4. Flying Aces Club News, No. 105 (Sep-Oct 1985)