in an intolerable position as his subordinate. One of his first actions as technical director was to terminate development of Hill's Pterodactyl, a pioneering tailless swept-wing aircraft. However, other business decisions by Ernest Petter infuriated Teddy. In July 1935 Ernest Petter convened a shareholders meeting to propose a merger with British Marine Aircraft for the purpose of expanding Westland's workshops. This proposal was thwarted by Teddy and Peter Acland who threatened to resign. But in July 1938 Ernest Petter sold the controlling shares in Westlands to John Brown Ltd, forming Westland Aircraft Limited as a separate company, with Eric Mensforth brought in to share the managing directorship with Peter Acland. Teddy saw the loss of family control of the company as the loss of his birthright, and this dispute would divide the Petter family for years, not being resolved until shortly before Ernest Petter's death in 1954. Lysander The Air Ministry was initially reluctant to award Westland contracts due to Petter's inexperience, but his reputation as a successful designer was strengthened after it was demonstrated that the automatic slats on the PV 7 were both effective and reliable. As a result, and after internal discussion, the Air Ministry added Westland to the list of bidders for Specification A.39/34 (the replacement for the Hawker Hector army co-operation aircraft). Petter started the design by interviewing the Army Cooperation pilots and ground crew. Based on this information, he placed pilot visibility, the ability to take off and land in small spaces, and ease of ground maintenance as the prime requirements. The resulting design, the Westland P8 (later named the Lysander), was clearly an evolution of Westland's high-winged monoplane designs, but Petter incorporated a number of innovative features including extensive use of extruded sections throughout the airframe, something that would be a feature in his future designs. The early flight testing revealed attitude control problems that the wind tunnel tests had not predicted. Petter instructed Penrose to conceal these problems from Ernest Petter. Later, when these problems had been addressed by a larger, variable-incidence tailplane, it was realised that if a landing was aborted and the throttle opened up fully, the Lysander could rear up and stall. While Penrose and RAF test pilots lobbied for modifications, Petter refused because redesign would affect production. Also, in his zeal to reduce weight, Petter had used glider fabric instead of specification Irish linen to cover the wings