The next speaker is
first in the list; after the event the speaker will be moved to the end
of the list.
Steve Philpott worked for the Ministry of
Defence from 1981-89 buying aircraft armament and in defence sales. He
joined British Aerospace at Kingston in 1989, working as an operations
analyst and then from 1992 working in market research and strategic
planning, also working at Weybridge and Farnborough after Kingston
closed. Working at Kingston, he became increasingly aware that the
Hurricane was historically misrepresented, especially when compared to
the Spitfire. He had actually started researching a book on the
Hurricane in the 1990s and eventually got it published in 2018.
He has also had articles published in Flypast magazine.
He owns a Tiger Moth which is used for pleasure flights from Bicester in Oxfordshire.
Dick Poole is a
trustee of the Royal Aero Club Trust. He started as
a
Vickers-Armstrongs apprentice in 1960.He worked as an aerodynamicist in
the Military Aircraft Project Office. In 1969 he transferred to Flight
Test at Wisley. He then transferred to the Concorde programme at
Fairford until joining Hawker's Flight Development Department at
Dunsfold. He was made Chief Flight Test Engineer in 1984 and was
promoted in 1987 to the role of Assistant Chief Designer for the UK
portion of the AV8B. This was followed with a number of Chief Engineer
type roles at Kingston until moving to Warton as Chief Engineer Light
Combat Aircraft and New Jet Trainers. He finished his career working on
Sea Harrier replacements and JSF, first with McDonnel -Douglas and then
Lockheed-Martin. He retired as a consultant in 2000
.
Rowland White
is a best-selling author. He grew up in Cambridge, and began
learning and writing about aviation as a child, before studying Modern
History at the University of Liverpool. He now lives in a village near
Cambridge that is satisfyingly close to the Imperial War Museum at
Duxford.
Karl Smith worked in the aircraft industry
for 62 years. During his 2½ years in the Installations Department of
HAL Kingston he witnessed the first tethered hover of the P.1127
prototype. His talk begins with the myth, legend and history of
aviation.
Neville Lyons served as a Regular Royal Signals Officer for 31
years followed by a second career as Executive of National and European
Electronics Trade Associations.
One of his retirement occupations has been researching his family
history where he found proof of his relationship to Sir Joseph Lyons
co-founder of J Lyons & Co, the giant catering company. Sir Joseph
was a cousin to Neville`s grandfather and this led him to deeper
research into the company`s history and the story of LEO.
