Bob England

A discussion restricted to the topic of hang gliding.
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Everard
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Location: Dorset, England

Post by Everard »

At the risk of straying from the subject, my first thermaling was at Merthyr at about that time, or maybe early 1979. I was then a student at the Polytechnic of Wales (at Treforest, Pontypridd, just down the valley from Merthyr). I was flying a Skyhook Sunspot mostly (owned by the students' union).

I think Ray Willis made the variometer I used, with a manly squawk unlike the high-pitch bleeping of most varios nowadays.

My ambition then was to be a successful hang glider designer. Although I had not heard of Bob England at that time, I guess I wanted to be like him.
I love the smell of napalm - in the morning.
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Nick Palmer
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Location: Polborder, Saltash, Cornwall

Post by Nick Palmer »

I met Bob in May 1978 in Bristol where he had a flat with his then girlfriend Beverly. He had very leonine long, curly hair and was pretty musical - he got me to "play" an accordion although I couldn't, and persuaded me that anyone could make music if they tried. I had gone over from Jersey to pick up and fly my new glider, the McBroom Superlynx. As I was a fellow Channel Islander, he put me up for a couple of days. His flat was littered with scale models of fantastic high aspect ratio hang gliders which flew very well. My log records that on 9th May we went to find a Welsh "secret site" but after a long hike found that the wind was too light to soar. Bob persuaded me that there was enough to just about stay up at ridge level so we could fly back about a mile to save walking. He went first and just maintained so I took off - when I got near to where we parked the cars, I realised I couldn't do a "textbook" top landing because I wasn't high enough, though Bob appeared to have landed OK. He gestured to me to do a simultaneous turn upslope and flare - perhaps he didn't realise that I only had 1.5 hours soaring experience! It was like that in those days - we had endless confidence and not enough knowledge of how things could go wrong. Anyway, I didn't quite do what he suggested because that was too radical and "landed" by flying straight into a bush - Bob said quizzically "not bad". He used to have a Morris 1000 ( a Moggie) and one night we were tearing down the motorway - the Morris would only do about 75mph but that didn't stop Bob trying to overtake much faster cars - he would press the pedal to the floor and scream the revs up and yell out "accelerate" at the top of his voice.

On the 5th May we "went out to shops to buy a tape measure for Bob's new Gryphon type machine".
On 14th May Bob won second prize (£65) in a competition held at Perran Sands in Cornwall that we had gone down to.
On 17th May Bob made nose plates for his Gryphon copy (The Gannet) at the High School of Hang gliding in Clifton, Bristol (run by the Fack twins Jerome and John).

That was the last time I saw him. I knew he died in California but I had always assumed, until seeing this forum topic, that it was a hang glider accident as I knew that he became a designer. I had tried to found out what happened but there was surprisingly little to find.
He had the characteristic of inspiring others to achieve more.

Hope this helps

Nick
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Everard
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Joined: Wed, Sep 01 2004, 04:01:44 am
Location: Dorset, England

Re: Bob England

Post by Everard »

This page (new in May 2021) on History of Hang Gliding consists partly of material moved from the chronology pages. However, it also contains new material including several anecdotes by John LaTorre of his time flight testing with Bob at Marina Beach, Monterey:
Bob England, hang glider designer
I love the smell of napalm - in the morning.