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THAT THE concept of a Massey Ferguson aircraft would probably not reassure a nervous flyer is, in its own way, a tribute to the machines for which the aforementioned company is famous, writes FRANK MCNALLY

The Irish half of the partnership, Harry Ferguson, was born in Co Down in 1884. And as fate would have it, down was also the direction associated with some his best-known inventions. In the 1920s, frustrated by the limitations of the existing, separately articulated tractors and ploughs, he designed his own “three-point linkage” system, more suited to Irish farmland, and indeed farmland generally.