Nicholas Goodhart
Encyclopedia
Rear Admiral Hilary Charles Nicholas 'Nick' Goodhart CB Legion of Merit
Legion of Merit
The Legion of Merit is a military decoration of the United States armed forces that is awarded for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements...

 FRAeS
Royal Aeronautical Society
The Royal Aeronautical Society, also known as the RAeS, is a multidisciplinary professional institution dedicated to the global aerospace community.-Function:...

 RN rtd
Royal Navy
The Royal Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the British Armed Forces. Founded in the 16th century, it is the oldest service branch and is known as the Senior Service...

 (28 September 1919 – 9 April 2011) was an engineer and aviator who invented the mirror-sight deck landing system
Optical Landing System
An optical landing system is used to give glidepath information to pilots in the terminal phase of landing on an aircraft carrier...

 for aircraft carrier
Aircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power worldwide without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...

s. He was also a world champion
World Gliding Championships
The World Gliding Championships is a gliding competition held every two years or so by the FAI Gliding Commission. The dates are not always exactly two years apart, often because the contests are sometimes held in the summer in the Southern Hemisphere....

 and record breaker in gliding
Gliding
Gliding is a recreational activity and competitive air sport in which pilots fly unpowered aircraft known as gliders or sailplanes using naturally occurring currents of rising air in the atmosphere to remain airborne. The word soaring is also used for the sport.Gliding as a sport began in the 1920s...

.

Early life

He was born at Inkpen
Inkpen
Inkpen is a village and civil parish in West Berkshire about southeast of Hungerford, close to the county boundaries with Wiltshire and Hampshire.-Amenities and landmarks:...

, Berkshire, the son of a patent engineer. He was educated at Miss White's Kintbury
Kintbury
Kintbury is a village and civil parish in West Berkshire, England, between the towns of Newbury and Hungerford.-Amenities:In Kintbury there is the Church of England parish church of Saint Mary, Church of England primary school, post office, corner shop, and a butcher...

, and Connaught House Weymouth.

Early career

Goodhart entered the Royal Naval College
Britannia Royal Naval College
Britannia Royal Naval College is the initial officer training establishment of the Royal Navy, located on a hill overlooking Dartmouth, Devon, England. While Royal Naval officer training has taken place in the town since 1863, the buildings which are seen today were only finished in 1905, and...

 at Dartmouth
Dartmouth, Devon
Dartmouth is a town and civil parish in the English county of Devon. It is a tourist destination set on the banks of the estuary of the River Dart, which is a long narrow tidal ria that runs inland as far as Totnes...

 in the Hawke Term in 1933. He then attended the Royal Naval Engineering College
Royal Naval Engineering College
The Royal Naval Engineering College was a specialist establishment for the training of Royal Navy engineers. It was founded as Keyham College in 1880, new buildings were opened in Manadon in 1940 and the old college site at Keyham closed in 1958...

 at Keyham, Devonport
HMNB Devonport
Her Majesty's Naval Base Devonport , is one of three operating bases in the United Kingdom for the Royal Navy . HMNB Devonport is located in Devonport, in the west of the city of Plymouth in Devon, England...

. He served as an engineering lieutenant, and saw action in the evacuation of Crete
Battle of Crete
The Battle of Crete was a battle during World War II on the Greek island of Crete. It began on the morning of 20 May 1941, when Nazi Germany launched an airborne invasion of Crete under the code-name Unternehmen Merkur...

 in 1941 on which was hit by two 1,000 lb bombs. He then served on and saw more action escorting convoys to Malta
Malta
Malta , officially known as the Republic of Malta , is a Southern European country consisting of an archipelago situated in the centre of the Mediterranean, south of Sicily, east of Tunisia and north of Libya, with Gibraltar to the west and Alexandria to the east.Malta covers just over in...

 and the assaults on Italy over the next two years.

He undertook pilot training in Canada in 1944 and joined the Fleet Air Arm
Fleet Air Arm
The Fleet Air Arm is the branch of the British Royal Navy responsible for the operation of naval aircraft. The Fleet Air Arm currently operates the AgustaWestland Merlin, Westland Sea King and Westland Lynx helicopters...

. While flying in a Grumman Hellcat with 896 Naval Air Squadron from the carrier off the coast of the Nicobar Islands
Nicobar Islands
The Nicobar Islands are an archipelagic island chain in the eastern Indian Ocean...

, he ditched because of engine failure on 11 July 1945 and was picked up by the destroyer, . He graduated from Empire Test Pilots' School
Empire Test Pilots' School
The Empire Test Pilots' School is a British training school for test pilots and flight test engineers of fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft at MoD Boscombe Down in Wiltshire, England. It was established in 1943, the first of its type...

 at Cranfield
Cranfield
Cranfield is a village and civil parish in north west Bedfordshire, England, between Bedford and Milton Keynes. It has a population of 4,909, and is in Central Bedfordshire District....

 in 1946. He tested the Westland Wyvern
Westland Wyvern
The Westland Wyvern was a British single-seat carrier-based multi-role strike aircraft built by Westland Aircraft that served in the 1950s, seeing active service in the 1956 Suez Crisis...

 fighter. He survived five serious incidents including the implosion of the aircraft's canopy during a high speed dive. He was then senior pilot of 700 Squadron at RNAS Yeovilton
RNAS Yeovilton
Royal Naval Air Station Yeovilton, or RNAS Yeovilton, is an airfield of the Royal Navy, sited in South West England a few miles north of Yeovil in Somerset...

 before returning as a test pilot at Donibristle
Donibristle
Donibristle was a house and estate in Fife, Scotland, on the coast of the Firth of Forth. Only the wings of the house remain, within the modern settlement of Dalgety Bay: they are now protected as a category A listed building...

, Boscombe Down and the Naval Air Test Center
Naval Air Station Patuxent River
"Pax River" redirects here. For the river, see Patuxent River.Naval Air Station Patuxent River , also known as NAS Pax River, is a United States Naval Air Station located in St. Mary's County, Maryland on the Chesapeake Bay near the mouth of the Patuxent River. It is home to the U.S...

 in Maryland, USA. During his military career he flew over 50 types of aircraft. After a period as technical secretary at the Ministry of Supply
Ministry of Supply
The Ministry of Supply was a department of the UK Government formed in 1939 to co-ordinate the supply of equipment to all three British armed forces, headed by the Minister of Supply. There was, however, a separate ministry responsible for aircraft production and the Admiralty retained...

 he was promoted to commander in 1953.

Carrier developments

Trials after 1945 by the Royal Navy revealed that the new jet aircraft had slow throttle responses and could not safely use the standard deck landing technique then in use. Even in peacetime carrier operations killed 20% of the aircrew. Goodhart therefore invented the mirror-sight deck landing system in 1951. The device was first introduced in the Royal Navy in 1954 and by the US Navy in 1955. It greatly increased the safety when landing on an aircraft carrier. There was also a saving in arrester gear units and barriers – Ark Royal needed only four wires and one (emergency only) barrier. The reduction in weight and the extra space that this conferred enabled more mess-decks to be fitted in, thus reducing congestion in living spaces. It was recorded that for US carriers, the landing accident rate fell by 80% from 35 per 10,000 landings in 1954 to 7 per 10,000 landings in 1957. The US Navy awarded him the Legion of Merit
Legion of Merit
The Legion of Merit is a military decoration of the United States armed forces that is awarded for exceptionally meritorious conduct in the performance of outstanding services and achievements...

 for his invention and he received an undisclosed sum from the Admiralty.

Later naval career

After a further spell at Yeovilton, Goodhart was posted to the air warfare department at the Admiralty
Admiralty
The Admiralty was formerly the authority in the Kingdom of England, and later in the United Kingdom, responsible for the command of the Royal Navy...

 and then at sea as the staff aviation officer to the flag officer aircraft carriers. He was promoted to Captain in 1962 and made project manager of the Sea Dart anti-aircraft missile programme. After a course at the Imperial Defence College in 1965, he became director of aircraft maintenance and repair in the Admiralty until 1968. He was then promoted to commodore and then rear-admiral and became director of defence operational requirements and finally military deputy to the head of defence sales. He was appointed Companion in The Most Honourable Order of the Bath in 1972 and he retired from the Royal Navy in 1973.

Gliding

Goodhart joined Yorkshire Gliding Club in 1938, quickly going solo within a week. He was also at various times a member of Cambridge University Gliding Club
Cambridge Gliding Centre
Cambridge Gliding Centre is a gliding club based near Cambridge in the United Kingdom on the Bedfordshire/Cambridgeshire county border. Nearby major towns include Bedford, Cambourne, Huntingdon, Royston, Sandy, St. Ives and St...

 and Lasham Gliding Society
Lasham Airfield
Lasham Airfield is located north-west of Alton in Hampshire, England, in the village of Lasham.It was built in 1942 and it was an operational RAF during the Second World War. It was used for recreational gliding from 1951. The airfield is now owned by the world's largest gliding club, Lasham...

. He began gliding competitively, at first with his brother, Tony, winning the British Team Championship in 1950. In 1955 he climbed to 30,500 ft in USA and became the first British glider pilot
Gliding
Gliding is a recreational activity and competitive air sport in which pilots fly unpowered aircraft known as gliders or sailplanes using naturally occurring currents of rising air in the atmosphere to remain airborne. The word soaring is also used for the sport.Gliding as a sport began in the 1920s...

 to gain the Diamond Badge. Later in 1955 he broke the British National Altitude Record in a Schweizer SGS 1-23
Schweizer SGS 1-23
The Schweizer SGS 1-23 is a United States Open and Standard Class, single-seat, mid-wing glider built by Schweizer Aircraft of Elmira, New York....

 in California climbing to 11,500 m (37,050 feet). He was a member of the British team at the World Championships
World Gliding Championships
The World Gliding Championships is a gliding competition held every two years or so by the FAI Gliding Commission. The dates are not always exactly two years apart, often because the contests are sometimes held in the summer in the Southern Hemisphere....

 from 1956 to 1972. In 1956 at Saint-Yan
Saint-Yan
Saint-Yan is a commune in the Saône-et-Loire department in the region of Bourgogne in eastern France.-Geography:The Arconce forms part of the commune's southern border and the Loire part of its western border.-External links:* at Quid* at MapQuest...

 in France, he and Frank Foster won the World Gliding Two Seater Championship in a Slingsby Eagle
Slingsby Eagle
-Further reading:* Taylor, J. H. Jane's Encyclopedia of Aviation. Studio Editions: London. p. 29-External links:* http://rcawsey.co.uk/eagle.htm...

. The US Soaring magazine noted that the only single seater to beat them was the winner, Paul MacCready
Paul MacCready
Paul B. MacCready, Jr. was an American aeronautical engineer. He was the founder of AeroVironment and the designer of the human-powered aircraft that won the Kremer prize...

. He finished in second place in the single seater World Championships in 1958 Leszno
Leszno
Leszno is a town in central Poland with 63,955 inhabitants . Situated in the southern part of the Greater Poland Voivodeship since 1999, it was previously the capital of the Leszno Voivodeship . The town has county status.-History:...

, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...

, and fourth in 1960 and 1972. He was British single-seater champion on three occasions (1962, 1967 & 1971), and in second place on four others. He finished first in the American Championships in 1955, though as foreigner could not be the US Champion.

At Lasham
Lasham Airfield
Lasham Airfield is located north-west of Alton in Hampshire, England, in the village of Lasham.It was built in 1942 and it was an operational RAF during the Second World War. It was used for recreational gliding from 1951. The airfield is now owned by the world's largest gliding club, Lasham...

 on 10 May 1959 he declared a goal of Portmoak
Scottish Gliding Union
The Scottish Gliding Union is the largest gliding club in Scotland. The body is based at, and operates, the Scottish Gliding Centre, Portmoak Airfield, Scotlandwell, by Loch Leven, Perth and Kinross.-External links:**...

 in Scotland and achieved a record goal flight of 579.36 km in a Slingsby Skylark 3 at an average speed of 90.7 km/h (46.3 kn). This is still the UK 20 metre goal distance record and the speed record for a 500 km (310.7 mi) goal flight. During his gliding career he held eleven British records.

Goodhart set up the project in 1966 to develop a glider called Sigma
Sigma (sailplane)
-External links:*...

 to compete in the 1970 World Championship Open class. After problems during production and then with its Fowler flaps, the only prototype flew in 1971. In a modified form the Sigma is still flying.

He was awarded the Silver Medal by the Royal Aero Club
Royal Aero Club
The Royal Aero Club is the national co-ordinating body for Air Sport in the United Kingdom.The Aero Club was founded in 1901 by Frank Hedges Butler, his daughter Vera and the Hon Charles Rolls , partly inspired by the Aero Club of France...

 in 1956. In 1972 he was award the Paul Tissandier Diploma by the FAI
Fédération Aéronautique Internationale
The Fédération Aéronautique Internationale is the world governing body for air sports and aeronautics and astronautics world records. Its head office is in Lausanne, Switzerland. This includes man-carrying aerospace vehicles from balloons to spacecraft, and unmanned aerial vehicles...

 in 1972. This award recognizes "those who have served the cause of Aviation in general and Sporting Aviation in particular, by their work, initiative, devotion or in other ways".

Human-powered flight

Goodhart's team put in over 3,000 man-hours of effort developing the two seater Newbury Manflier project in an effort to win the Kremer prize for man-powered flight. The aircraft's two pilots were seventy feet apart, each in their own fuselage. However the team was beaten by Goodhart's old rival Paul MacCready
Paul MacCready
Paul B. MacCready, Jr. was an American aeronautical engineer. He was the founder of AeroVironment and the designer of the human-powered aircraft that won the Kremer prize...

 with the Gossamer Condor
Gossamer Condor
-See also:-Further reading:*Morton Grosser. Gossamer Odyssey: The Triumph of Human-Powered Flight. MBI Press, 2004; Dover Publications, Inc., 1991; Houghton Mifflin Co., 1981*Morton Grosser. On Gossamer Wings. York Custom Graphics, 1982...

's
flight in 1977 and by the Gossamer Albatross
Gossamer Albatross
-See also:-Further reading:*Allen, Bryan. Winged Victory of "Gossamer Albatross". National Geographic, November 1979, vol. 156, n. 5, p. 640-651...

 for the first cross-Channel flight in 1979. The project was terminated soon after the first flights had been achieved in 1979 because the hangar and runway at Greenham Common were required for the US Air Force.

Other activities

He was a consultant to Boeing
Boeing
The Boeing Company is an American multinational aerospace and defense corporation, founded in 1916 by William E. Boeing in Seattle, Washington. Boeing has expanded over the years, merging with McDonnell Douglas in 1997. Boeing Corporate headquarters has been in Chicago, Illinois since 2001...

 (1973–1980) during which time the Royal Navy acquired a hydrofoil HMS Speedy
HMS Speedy (P296)
HMS Speedy was a Boeing Jetfoil mine countermeasure vessel of the British Royal Navy. She was procured in 1979 to provide the Royal Navy with practical experience in the operation of a hydrofoil, to ascertain technical and performance characteristics, and to oversee the capability of such a...

 and the RAF acquired its first Chinooks. He held directorships including at the Lancashire and Yorkshire Building Society and was a member at Lloyd's
Lloyd's of London
Lloyd's, also known as Lloyd's of London, is a British insurance and reinsurance market. It serves as a partially mutualised marketplace where multiple financial backers, underwriters, or members, whether individuals or corporations, come together to pool and spread risk...

 where he gained and lost large sums over a period of twenty years.
He was elected Master of the Worshipful Company of Grocers
Worshipful Company of Grocers
The Worshipful Company of Grocers is one of the 108 Livery Companies of the City of London. It is ranked second in the order of precedence of the Companies and, having been established in 1345, is one of the original Great Twelve City Livery Companies....

 of the City of London
City of London
The City of London is a small area within Greater London, England. It is the historic core of London around which the modern conurbation grew and has held city status since time immemorial. The City’s boundaries have remained almost unchanged since the Middle Ages, and it is now only a tiny part of...

. He finished 35th of 350 in the 1951 Monte Carlo Rally
Monte Carlo Rally
The Monte Carlo Rally or Rally Monte Carlo is a rallying event organised each year by the Automobile Club de Monaco which also organises the Formula One Monaco Grand Prix and the Rallye Monte-Carlo Historique. The rally takes place along the French Riviera in the Principality of Monaco and...

. Simon Hoggart
Simon Hoggart
Simon David Hoggart is an English journalist and broadcaster. He writes on politics for The Guardian, and on wine for The Spectator. Until 2006 he presented The News Quiz on Radio 4...

 is married to his step-daughter and claimed that Goodhart also invented the box junction
Box junction
A box junction is a traffic control measure designed to prevent gridlock at busy road junctions. The surface of the junction is marked with a criss-cross grid of diagonal painted lines , and vehicles may not enter the area so marked unless their exit from the junction is clear A box junction is a...

 but was uncredited.
He proposed a method of suppressing hurricanes during their formation. His proposal involved covering 100 km2 of ocean with a reflective material using four aircraft, each with a 2 km wingspan. He was persuaded it would not work, so he switched the concept to putting out forest fires. At the age of 88 he raised funds for a hospice near Exeter by abseiling down Cullompton
Cullompton
Cullompton is a civil parish and town in Devon, England, locally known as Cully. It is miles north-north-east of Exeter and lies on the River Culm. In 2010 it had a population of 8,639 and is growing rapidly....

church.

Goodhart married Lydia Sward in 1957 and Molly Copsey in 1975. He had three step-children: Alyson, Ian and Fiona.

External links

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.  The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.
 
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