Aeronautical Firsts In 1797 William Moore founded a company close to this site which was eventually to become Boulton & Paul Ltd. This company developed the first all metal framed aeroplane with the first ever major use of plastic in an aircraft in the world, exhibited at the Salon d'Aeronautique in Paris of 1919. It also built the airframe for the largest airship in the world at the time in 1925, the R101. The company is most famously known for the wartime nightfighter the Boulton Paul Defiant.