GOODHART
The story of an exceptional man
by RICHARD HARRIS & BARRIE WILLIAMS
Nicholas Goodhart . . . an exceptional man of extraordinary achievements.
As a naval officer – he joined as a junior cadet at the age of 13 and by the time he retired 40 years later as a Rear Admiral he had almost single handedly transformed maritime aviation with his bravery, vision and inventiveness.
He will be remembered always as the man who invented the mirror deck landing system (developed with the help of a secretary and her make-up mirror) which reduced the accident rate among pilots landing on aircraft carriers by 80% and was
adopted almost immediately by every one of the world’s navies.
But there was much more to him even that that. As a glider pilot he flew higher and further than any British pilot before him, won three national championships and was a key member of the British team for more than 20 years. He combined his gliding skills and engineering know-how to design a new glider type that is still in use, and pushed back the frontiers of man-powered flight when his Newbury Manflyer, a huge aircraft propelled by two men on bicycles, flew – though not very far – at Greenham Common on New Year’s Day 1980.
As an inveterate inventor he dreamed up, among many other things, the yellow-hatched box junction several years before the Ministry of Transport, which had not even bothered to reply to his letter which originally suggested it, just happened to have precisely the same idea.
At the age of 88 he abseiled down the tower of his local church . . . before returning to work on his latest project – a huge aircraft with a 3 kilometre wingspan which was to be a ‘hurricane-buster’, dropping a lid on embryo hurricanes as they built up on the ocean.
Rear Admiral Hilary Charles Nicholas 'Nick' Goodhart CB Legion of Merit FRAeS
RN Rtd – a truly exceptional man. This is his story.
As a naval officer – he joined as a junior cadet at the age of 13 and by the time he retired 40 years later as a Rear Admiral he had almost single handedly transformed maritime aviation with his bravery, vision and inventiveness.
He will be remembered always as the man who invented the mirror deck landing system (developed with the help of a secretary and her make-up mirror) which reduced the accident rate among pilots landing on aircraft carriers by 80% and was
adopted almost immediately by every one of the world’s navies.
But there was much more to him even that that. As a glider pilot he flew higher and further than any British pilot before him, won three national championships and was a key member of the British team for more than 20 years. He combined his gliding skills and engineering know-how to design a new glider type that is still in use, and pushed back the frontiers of man-powered flight when his Newbury Manflyer, a huge aircraft propelled by two men on bicycles, flew – though not very far – at Greenham Common on New Year’s Day 1980.
As an inveterate inventor he dreamed up, among many other things, the yellow-hatched box junction several years before the Ministry of Transport, which had not even bothered to reply to his letter which originally suggested it, just happened to have precisely the same idea.
At the age of 88 he abseiled down the tower of his local church . . . before returning to work on his latest project – a huge aircraft with a 3 kilometre wingspan which was to be a ‘hurricane-buster’, dropping a lid on embryo hurricanes as they built up on the ocean.
Rear Admiral Hilary Charles Nicholas 'Nick' Goodhart CB Legion of Merit FRAeS
RN Rtd – a truly exceptional man. This is his story.
