He had four children, Barnes, Mary Stopes-Roe, Elizabeth and Christopher.
After the war, he led aeronautical research and development at the British Aircraft Corporation. He became a fellow of the Royal Society in 1954, and was knighted in 1968.
He developed the "bouncing bomb" used by the RAF's Dambusters in WWII -- a drum-shaped, rotating device that would bounce over water, roll down a dam's wall and explode at its base.