George Lee presents Andy with the De Havilland trophy; taken by BGA Photographer Paul Morrison
The De Havilland Trophy: former winners include Philip Wills, Derek Piggott and George Lee
Andy wrote:
"I
collected the De Havilland trophy at the BGA Conference this weekend.
Sadly it wasn't easy to get any very good photos but I have attached
what Gillian managed and a shot of the 'pot'. I don't know how best to
photograph a shiny silver trophy like this. The inscription reads :-
"Presented to the British Gliding Association by Geoffrey De Havilland 1934"
I
think this must have been Geoffrey De Havilland Snr. who was the
founder of the De Havilland Aircraft Company. He set a British Altitude
record in 1912 in his BE2 designed aircraft (all of 10,500'!) De
Havillands went on to produce the Moth (many still flying ), the
Mosquito and the Vampire. His son (also Geoffrey was born in 1910) died
flight testing the DH Swallow a prototype tail less swept wing jet.
On the base it has a fascinating list of recipients which is very humbling to follow.
- Phillip Wills,
- Frank Foster,
- Tony Deane-Drummond,
- Derek Piggot,
- Humphrey Dimmock- all world-reknowned pioneeers of gliding.
It
has also been won by Mike Costin who is a country member at Milfield
and by George Lee who presented me with the trophy. George was a hero to
me when I was an early solo pilot. He won the World open class
championships 3 times in a row in 1976, 78 & 81 and he also flew
Prince Charles in a glider. A little known fact is that, at the age of
24, I wrote to several newspapers and the BBC complaining that, although
we were rubbish at most sports we had a World Champion who had gone
un-reported. In frustration I wrote to Jimmy Saville (Jim'll Fix It)
asking if he could fix it for me to go flying with George, in the hope
of generating some publicity - but that request was ignored (good thing
in hindsight ?) !"
Regards
Andy
