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Archived News Items 2020





News Items that have been on the News page but are no longer current are generally transferred to an archive. As there are generally more announcements of Future event than News each have their own archive page from 2017.

26 November Our first Virtual talk using Zoom titled “Fall of Icarus: RAF policy and fighter design 1945-1949” by Michael Pryce was very successful and interesting. 39 members joined the meeting.

19 November is the 60th anniversary of the first untethered hover of XP831 the first P.1127. Mike Fantham.

26 October We are sad to report that Stuart Taylor died peacefully in his sleep on September 26th in a care home in Truro. He joined Hawker Siddeley at Kingston from Blackburn Aircraft in Brough in about 1963, and retired in the 80s. He worked on the Buccaneer, the Harrier (his major professional concern) and the Hawk. In retirement Stuart moved back to Truro, where he'd been brought up, fitted out a Rustler 31 sailing yacht (which is still going strong) and lived a full and adventurous life until a couple of years ago, when age began catching up with him. He lived to within three weeks of his 97th birthday. He has three children, eight grandchildren and two great-grandchildren. Chris Farara.

On 30th August sadly Ray Searle died; I have found more information. Ray’s funeral service was on Thursday 10 September at Guildford Crematorium and in a tribute to Ray at raymondsearle.muchloved.com there is the web address, Order ID and Password to play a recording of the funeral service, including an address by Colin Wilson, that is available until 17 September.

24 July  A link sent to me by Richard Lane; the first US black female tactical aircraft pilot posing in front of the T-45 Goshawk that she qualified. Another 1st for the Hawk.   

09 July A short video (4:00) with a history slide show of the Richmond road site from its building in 2017 to its demolition in 1993 followed by a video of some of the demolition is on Youtube.

On Wednesday 29 July at 11am Michael Pryce, a member of the Association, is giving an online 'webinar' for the RAeS on “The Supply of Future Combat Aircraft”. One issue he will raise is how to 'be more Harrier'. This may be of interest to Hawker Association members. More details, and a registration form, are here.

08 April Off topic but in this time of Covid-19 I found these TED Talks with Bill Gates very interesting; in the first one he was forecasting Covid-19 5 years ago, only 8 minutes.
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Bill_Gates_how_we_must_respond_to_Covid-19

03 March Newsletter 56 Spring 2020 PDF is available online.

23 February Chris Farara has created Six newsletter content Indexes. The newsletters contain reports and stories on AGMs (PDF), Book reviews (PDF), Contributions by members (PDF), News (PDF),  Talks (PDF), and Visits (PDF); click one of these links to display an index page in a new window, PDF displays a PDF file (better for printing), some contain links that display a newsletter page for the story in a new

On 12th February Bob Catterson presented “Scenic Highlights From My Travels In The USA” followed by an Aircraft Quiz. Story, Photos

27January Chris Farara has created Six newsletter content Indexes.The newsletters contain reports and stories on AGMs (PDF), Book reviews (PDF), Contributions by members (PDF), News (PDF),  Talks (PDF), and Visits (PDF); click one of these links to display an index page in a new window, PDF displays a PDF file (better for printing), some contain links that display a newsletter page for the story in a new window. More complete is a list of events created by Frank Rainsborough; Events 2003-2017 as PDF, no links.

16 January We are saddened to hear of the death of Bob Head, who passed peacefully away on January 9th in his 96th year. Bob worked at Kingston for many years in the Design Dept. and became Head of Weights after the retirement of Ian Nightingale. Many people will have happy memories of working with him on Harrier, Hawk and advanced project teams. Bob's funeral service will be held at 12pm on 5th February in Our Lady of Help of Christians Catholic Church in North Camp, Farnborough. The address is 1a Sherborne Road, Farnborough, GU14 6JS. Afterwards there is a reception in the Squirrel Inn, 125 Park Road, Farnborough, GU14 6LR. All are welcome to the church, but if you wish to attend the reception, please inform Ken Batstone (01932 229938), who will pass on this information to the funeral organisers for catering purposes.