COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

CHAPTER THIRTEEN FRONTIERS OF WHAT?
you know. Perhaps one for every six or ten!" He shrugged his shoulders
with an almost Gallic expressiveness.
Fokker was the F104 story all over again, a project in which Elliott
had no part, with the faint possibility - coming late in the day - of a
few engine instruments on the Friendship.
Back in London, Derek Wood, journalist and writer extraordinary,
was a mine of ideas and information. He knew the world of aviation
like the back of his hand, and I owe him a great debt for his help then,
and on many other occasions over the years. Anne and I had first met
him at Aviation Forum, a regular gathering of like minded journalists,
at the Kronfeld Club, in a basement behind Victoria Station.
Derek ran Interavia UK from premises little better than a garret
alongside the old Daily Telegraph building in Fleet Street. To those in
the know it was the hub of a unique information gathering network
with Derek at the centre. There were other links - to the Interavia
offices in Europe - and in particular to the head office in Geneva -
where the Air Letter was published on every working day. The Air
Letter was invaluable, an up to date and in depth source of
information, for those seeking to keep in close contact with all aspects
of aviation.
Derek put me in touch with Ken Powell, a retired RAF Wing
Commander, who had set up an aviation agency in Bad Godesburg.
Ken had done well. Rumour had it from engine starters and
pyrotechnics supplied to the Federal Republic - the origins were
obscure and he rarely spoke of the past. Amongst his other interests he
represented Rolls Royce as their 'Correspondent' 1 in Germany.
He was paid a small retainer, barely enough to cover the cost of
our visits, and it seemed to me that Elliotts were being unduly mean.
But Jack was unmoved by my arguments and Ken was hardly Jack's
kind of man - wild, volatile and fiercely independent - loyal as the
day to those he respected, a bastard to those he did not. So his retainer
remained unchanged and I suspect that he stayed with us for the love
of the game. Ken was a good friend and an amusing guide and mentor
in the re-emerging aviation and defence markets of post war Germany.
The fascination, and the enigma, of Germany was still with me
almost fifteen years after the end of the war and I was happy to spend
a lot of time there. But there was another, more compelling reason.
The German aircraft industry, helped by the F104 programme, was
taking it's first tentative steps back into business. On the next major
project, assuming that the politicians did not foul it up again, Elliotts
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