by Philippe Domogala
IFATCA Contributing Editor
The GATCO Annual General Meeting was held in Brooklands, some 15 Miles South of London Heathrow. The traditional gala dinner afterwards, in pure British tradition, was held in the nearby Vickers aircraft factory, which has now been converted into a large aviation museum.
During World War 2, the legendary Wellington bombers were assembled here. After the war ended, they built famous civil airliners like the Viscount, the Vanguard and of course the VC10 at this location.
During the 1960s and 70s, Vickers also built large parts for all British and French Concordes, including the nose, the cockpit, the rudder and the tail cone. To commemorate this period, British Airways donated one of their supersonic aircraft to the museum. It has been beautifully restored and one can not only board it to view all parts, but the front section has been converted into a “passenger simulator” with moving seats. Visitors can have the “Concorde experience“: taking off, accelerating with reheat on to Mach 2, climbing to 60.000 ft, and landing. Highly recommended if you are in the area.
The pre-dinner drinks were served underneath the last Wellington bomber remaining out of the 2500 they built here. It was recovered from a 1940 crash site in Loch Ness. The gala dinner itself was held in the nearby building. Jez Pigden, our IFATCA conference coordinator and also Olivia May our European regional meeting co-chair helped organise the event.
Benjamin Van der Sanden, current IFATCA EVP Technical represented our Federation and made a great speech recalling the importance of the UK Guild, always providing at least one of their members to the IFATCA Executive Board, since 1961.
Two of the past IFATCA Executive Board members were present at the dinner: Ian Finlay, who was Vice President Administration from 1983 to 1985; and Chris Stock, who was EVP Technical between 1992 and 1997, and later Editor of The Controller from 2000 to 2005. Both gentlemen are well into their 80s and in excellent shape!
Chris received an award on his retirement as one of GATCO’s Directors, and for his many years of service overall to the Guild. The ATC team at the RAF Akrotiri Airbase in Cyprus was also awarded the Hunt trophy for their work over recent years supporting operations in the region
The AGM itself was focused on providing better value to their members in the future by cutting unnecessary costs and doing more of what matters to Controllers in the UK.
Once again, one of the oldest Air traffic controllers Associations in the world hosted a memorable event.
