COMBAT AND COMPETITION.pdf - Lakes Gliding Club

CHAPTER FOURTEEN OLD WAR HORSES
technical legal grounds....
That bland statement hardly matched the stand up fight which had
occurred in front of an unhappy EGA Council. Philip at his most
determined, inclined to ignore the Revenue's conclusions, confronted
by Wally Kahn who insisted in no uncertain terms that he was asking
the meeting to rubber stamp an illegal act.
So change, when it came about, had to be for the better. And the
movement today owes a debt to those who managed it so well. Peter
Scott, who else could have followed Philip in such a remarkable double
act, sustaining and enhancing the image of gliding with the outside
world, and encouraging the innovative process. David Carrow and his
study group who were to see many of their proposals turned upside
down when Peter and the rest of the Council began to work them over.
Yet it was they who had gathered the essential data and provided a
starting point for debate.
Not least Roger Barren who took over the Flying Committee, when
John Furlong was eventually persuaded to retire, and threw open the
stable doors. You only had to read his regular column in S & G 1 ,
'Flying Talk 1 to realise that Roger was determined to communicate
with the membership, to find out what they wanted, and to help them
in whatever way he could.
But was it all for the best? I look back with affection on those
earlier days and wonder. The sense of belonging, of community,
within the movement was so much stronger. The discipline - you only
have to compare some of the competition briefings, then and now, to
see the difference - and the dedication of those in authority.
Perhaps in gliding as elsewhere we have 'progressed 1 by discarding
too much from the past and spurning the lessons of experience. Instead
of respecting what is good - and still relevant - and building on that
sure foundation with all the advantages of modern thinking and
technology.
On the matter of airspace, that most serious of all threats to the
well-being of the sport, I am on firmer ground. From the moment
when it became a problem in the mid fifties, until his retirement and
beyond, Philip's contribution was immeasurable. Nick Goodhart,
longest serving Chairman of the Airways/Airspace Committee, was the
other principal actor in the piece and together they made a formidable
team. Philip, generous with his time, determined not to yield an inch,
keeping up a constant barrage on the political front. Nick as always,
numerate, immaculately briefed, totally self confident - running
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