Ballooning passion and air traffic at Farnborough Airshows…an interview with air traffic controller John Baker

Welcome to NOTAM News, a new podcast from the AEROSPACE team.

In this episode of AEROSPACE NOTAM Specialist Group Insight Seth Moffat, Chair of the Royal Aeronautical Society's Flight Operations Group (FOG) Specialist Group, is joined by Captain Steven Green FRAeS and Captain Thorsten Brandt FRAeS to discuss operational decision making. For more information on the Royal Aeronautical Society visit www.aerosociety.com

From water-ingestion and engine surge trials on Concorde 002 to flying eight of the ten Concordes built, Alan shares first-hand memories of the aircraft's flight test programme. He also recalls continuing to fly and train customers on the BAC 1-11 throughout the Concorde programme, and training the first British Airways Concorde crews. His flying career ultimately spanned more than 50 years, 75 aircraft types and over 18,000 flying hours. In 1973, Alan Smith joined the Concorde flight test programme at Fairford, where he spent much of the year repeatedly driving Concorde 002 through water troughs on the runway to assess engine behaviour during water-ingestion trials. The programme later moved to Casablanca. By the end of the year he had qualified as an MOD test pilot on the Canberra and made his first Concorde flight on the 002 with Brian Trubshaw. In 1974 he flew the third British Concorde, G-BBDG ("Delta Golf"), for the first time with John Cochrane, describing the experience as "simply the greatest". Delta Golf became the aircraft he flew most often, including participating on a record-setting test flight that reached around Mach 2.21. From 1976, Alan became a Senior Concorde training pilot, co-authoring the British Airways Concorde training syllabus with Paddy Cormican and training the first BA Concorde crews in Toulouse and Filton. Remarkably, he notes that he never received a formal Concorde conversion course himself, instead learning through experience as a test pilot. Alongside the “simply inspirational” Concorde programme, he continued flying and training BAC 1-11 crews worldwide, contributed to further Concorde flight testing on intake lip development, trained CAA pilots on the Concorde simulator, and later supported the Panavia programme by flying staff between Warton and Munich. After leaving British Aerospace in 1986, Alan held flying and management roles with Channel Express, Air Metro and Rolls-Royce. He retired from full-time flying in 1993, but soon returned with the CAA Calibration Unit and later Air Bristol after the airline pilot age limit was raised, finally retiring at 65 in 1998. Over a flying career spanning more than 50 years, Alan logged around 18,000 flying hours on 75 aircraft types, including 30 years on the BAC 1-11 and 3,000 hours on the DC-3. Throughout the interview he reflects on the many distinguished pilots, engineers and colleagues he worked with, offering a fascinating insight into Britain's flight test and commercial aviation industries during the latter half of the twentieth century. A transcript of the recording is available on the National Aerospace Library catalogue: https://raes.soutron.net/Portal/Default/en-GB/RecordView/Index/4193691 Alan Smith talked with Julian Temple, Heritage Archivist for BAE Systems Heritage, on 19 March 2024. The recording was edited for podcast by Eur Ing Mike Stanberry FRAeS and is published by kind permission of BAE Systems for the Royal Aeronautical Society/National Aerospace Library’s oral history project ‘If I only didn’t do it that way…….” Capturing history from the horse’s mouth to inspire today’s aeronautical professionals'.

In the latest podcast in the series from the Royal Aeronautical Society's monthly AEROSPACE magazine, Editor in Chief Tim Robinson, Deputy Editor Stephen Bridgewater and Features Editor Dominic Ward analyse recent aviation, aerospace and space news - and preview the newest (October 2026) edition of the magazine.

Taking up the challenge of greening aviation, undertaking fundamental research and guiding university departments, in this fascinating interview, Prof. Ian Poll reflects on a remarkable career spanning pioneering aerodynamics research, university leadership at Cranfield and Manchester, research work at NASA Langley, and the challenge of making aviation more sustainable with Greener by Design. After seeing no future projects in the 1970s Hawker Siddeley Aviation’s Military Future Projects office, Ian recalls his early research into laminar flow at Cranfield and how he rediscovered the phenomenon of attachment line contamination – work that attracted international interest and remains relevant today. He remembers presenting this research at his first major conference, where a lively debate with leading figures in aerodynamics sparked his enthusiasm for academia. He also recalls, during his PhD work, a memorable conversation with Sir Frank Whittle, as they drank tea while sitting on the floor of the Cranfield 8’x6’ wind tunnel. After Cranfield, Ian spent a formative year at NASA Langley, conducting research on low-drag technologies and developing ideas with applications to the Space Shuttle, while building professional connections that opened up new opportunities and influenced his later career. He went on to become Professor of Aerospace Engineering at Manchester, where he spent a decade helping to develop the department, before returning to Cranfield in 1995 to lead the College of Aeronautics through a period of major change, redevelopment and expansion. He discusses the creation of Aerospace Cranfield Ltd and its X-48 blended-wing-body programme, and the creation of the National Flying Laboratory, which gives students the unique opportunity to experience an aircraft behaving badly. At the turn of the millennium Ian highlighted the two opportunities that faced aviation – the inevitable rise of UAVs and the green agenda. He reflects on opportunities missed, including the potential for Cranfield to become a world centre for UAV research. Ian concludes by discussing his involvement with the Royal Aeronautical Society’s Greener by Design initiative from its very early days, bringing engineers, academics and policymakers together to address the challenges of sustainable aviation, as well as his time as President of the Society. He explores the complex issue of contrails and expresses his frustration that more is not being done to implement solutions that are already achievable. He offers a positive, pragmatic message: “We don’t need miracle science to tell us what to do – it’s engineering.” For Ian, reducing aviation’s environmental impact is fundamentally an engineering, rather than a science, problem. Ian reflects on a career he feels privileged to have had, from pioneering research to meeting leading figures in aviation and aerospace. Looking back, he feels fortunate to have been involved in work that mattered – and in things that will continue to matter in the future. Prof Ian Poll ACM OBE FREng FCGI Hon FAIAA FRAeS was interviewed by Dr Kit Mitchell as part of the Royal Aeronautical Society/National Aerospace Library’s oral history project ‘If I only didn’t do it that way…….” Capturing history from the horse’s mouth to inspire today’s aeronautical professionals.'' The recording was edited by Eur Ing Mike Stanberry FRAeS. A transcript of the interview recording is available on the National Aerospace Library catalogue: https://raes.soutron.net/Portal/Default/en-GB/RecordView/Index/4193586