The Martin-Handasyde featured a slender wood-covered triangular section fuselage, and tapered wings which were braced by mid-span kingposts. Lateral control was by wing-warping and the angle of incidence of the wings varied from 5 degrees at the wing root to zero at the tip. It was initially powered by a 60 hp Antoinette V-8 engine and was later changed to a 40 hp J.A.P. It was first flown at Brooklands by H.P. Martin during November 1910, and was flown throughout 1912 by Douglas Graham Gilmour, who was eventually killed in the aircraft when it suffered a mid-air structural failure over Richmond Park on February 17, 1912