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BHPA Exec Profiles

 

John Aldridge - Competitions & CIVL Delegate

 

Marc Asquith - External Representation

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.

 

Edward Cunliffe - Paramotor Liaison

Edward CunliffeEd was co-opted onto BHPA Executive council as ‘Paramotor liaison‘ representative in April 2006 and duly elected at the AGM later that year. He has been flying for 13 years off and on, starting on flexwing microlights in 1996 then switching to paramotors in 1999 and more recently paragliders too.

Ed is a founder member of the BHPA registered Yorkshire Owls Paramotor Club in which he holds the Finance Officer post, and has recently been appointed as a club coach. He is also a new member of the Sir George Cayley Sailwing Club and is busy learning the intricacies of unpowered flight. An occasional competition pilot, Ed is also on the PPG Comps advisory panel.

In his non flying life Ed has a background in IT though he managed to escape the office, and hankering for the high life, switched to tower crane driving for three years. With little crane work around he has recently switched careers again and is rapidly becoming an amateur accountant as he starts to take over the financial side of the family business.

 

Paul Dancey - Publications & Web Site

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 sound and video engineering background, and recently retired from the National Museum of Wales, where he was employed as a part time AV studio technician. 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, Secretary of the Welsh Free Flight Federation, and a Director of the Welsh Sports Association. Paul is also Chairman of the Outdoor Pursuits Group of the Welsh Sports Association, and chairman of their Overseas Expeditions Grants Panel.

 

Martin Heywood - Chairman & Insurance Officer

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.

 

Brett Janaway - Member

Angus PinkertonBrett Janaway was first elected to the BHPA Executive Council in 1999. During this three year period he performed several roles including Events and the BHPA Website. Having being re-elected in 2008 he will be actively seeking roles suited to his experience and skill set.

Brett‘s background is in Electronic and Radio Engineering but for several years now he has been proprietor of xTc Paragliding, a guiding company for paraglider and hang-glider pilots around Europe.

He has flown many aircraft types from paragliders to hang-gliders, paramotors, microlights and light aircraft, having grown up in an aviation family. He also has a long history in competition flying and record setting.

 

Angus Langford - Treasurer

 

John Lawson - Member

 

John Nash - Member

Angus PinkertonJohn Nash (Nasher) was elected to the BHPA Executive council in 2009 and is willing not only to seek roles that match his skills & background but also to take on any new challenges that may arise.

He started hangliding in a 1979 and Paragliding in 1991, now concentrating on paragliding. Has been a Cub Coach since 1994 and is an active member of the South West Wales Soaring Club. Having spent most of his career in senior management roles in Information & Communication Technology, with a bias towards trouble shooting & saving ‘fallen’ companies, he has now given up mainstream work and teaches circus skills (mainly unicycling) on a voluntary basis.

When not flying he spends his time motorcycling, snowboarding, windsurfing, mountain biking, playing guitar (badly) and unicycling.

 

Angus Pinkerton - FSC Chairman

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.

 

Steve Walsh - Sites

 

John Welch - School's Liaison

John WelchJohn Welch is the school Liaison on the executive council. As well as working for the general membership he represents the interests of schools. As the proprietor of Flight Culture in Dorset he’s well acquainted with the problems faced by schools and instructors. John is also an instructor examiner which allows him to visit many other schools, keeping him current with general trends.

John has a degree in mechanical engineering, is a diving instructor and first aid instructor. He spent 10 years living in the French Alps where he owned a night club. He started paragliding in 1986 while living in the Alps and was hooked from the start.

 



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