Hang Gliding and Paragliding Images
.
home

 

BHPA Exec Profiles

 

Martin Heywood

Martin HeywoodMartin is the Chairman of the Executive council and in this role is responsible for co-ordination of all activities concerning executive business of the BHPA as a functioning national regulatory body and limited company. His job is also to ensure that the diverse and wide-ranging sectors within the Association and the various aspects of the free flying industry in which they operate all work together for the interests of the membership as a whole. Martin also looks after the BHPA's aviation insurance contract, which provides indemnity cover to each and every member of the Association. This is a significant responsibility given that over half of the Association's expenditure goes on this important area.

Outside BHPA business, Martin is a full-time solicitor based in Peterborough working in the healthcare sector with particular interest in litigation and inquest handling. When time permits he flies a powered hang glider and goes windsurfing when the weather turns for the worse.

 

Marc Asquith

Marc AsquithMarc Asquith is one of the founding members of the BHPA. By profession he is now a barrister, having had a mid-life crisis and a career change from retail management on the high street in the mid-1990s. He has served variously as BHPA PR Officer and Safety Officer, Insurance Officer and External Representation Officer. He currently is BHPA Company Secretary and pro tem is keeping an eye on the finances.

As BHPA External Representation Officer Mark has sat on the Royal Aero Club Council and served as its Chairman and later Vice-President. He has also served as a Trustee of the RAeC Trust and Flyability. In his spare time he is a County Councillor in Cheshire.

As an Air Cadet, having completed his PPL through a flying scholarship and a solo gliding course, he first started flying hang gliders in November 1977 at Swansea University. He qualified as a microlight instructor in the early 1980s working for Gerry Breen at Enstone Airfield. He competed in the (then) Hang Gliding League throughout the 1980s and managed on one occasion to be selected as a member of the British Hang Gliding Team.

In 1986 he started flying paragliders. In 1991, having been elected Chairman of the BHPA, he also started flying in parascending competitions, achieving a Team Bronze in the 1994 Nationals at Middle Wallop. He started flying powered hang gliders when they became legal and now most regularly flies his Doodlebug in Snowdonia. He also flies his Airwave Wave paraglider whenever weather and time allow.

 

Angus Pinkerton

Angus PinkertonAngus is an elected member of the BHPA Executive Council and is the Chairman of the Flying and Safety Committee. He has held these posts for what sometimes seems like forever, and before amalgamation with the BAPC he was Chairman of the BHPA Training Committee. He has a degree in Aeronautical Engineering and worked for a while with a small Scottish hang glider manufacturer, as well as being a part-time Instructor. In 1979 he made his first hang glider flight, and has been a member of the Lanarkshire and Lothian Soaring Club since then. He has flown throughout the UK and Europe and in many competitions at home and abroad, including the World Championships at Fiesch, Switzerland, in 1989.

Angus was founder Chairman of the International Hang Glider Standards Organisation, and for the last ten years has been the Co-ordinator of the CEN Paraglider Standards Working Group, steering the creation of the CEN paraglider Flight Test and Load Test standards. Fitting all this around his paid employment as a computer information security consultant has finally got too much, and he will be retiring (early!) from work in 2007. He lives in Paisley with his exceptionally tolerant wife Norma and their two sons, who are both now studying at Glasgow University. Angus was awarded the FAI Tissandier Diploma in 1994.

 

Paul Dancey

Paul DanceyPaul was first elected to the BHPA Executive Council in 1998, and as Director of Corporate Communications, is responsible for the day to day management of Skywings magazine and the BHPA web site, liaising closely with editorial and design staff, and outside contractors.

Paul has a theatre sound engineering background, but is currently employed as a part time AV studio technician in Cardiff. He also runs his own web hosting business. Paul took up hang gliding in 1989, and in 1993 joined the Welsh Hang Gliding Centre where he worked for 5 years. He is currently Chairman of the SE Wales Hang Gliding & Paragliding Club, and a Director of the Welsh Sports Association. Paul is also Chairman of the Overseas Expeditions Grants Panel operated by the Welsh Sports Association on behalf of the Sports Council for Wales.

 


home - learn to fly - shop - join - site map - links - contact - terms & conditions - privacy

      home up