Captain Lovell will receive the Guild of Air Pilots' Award of Honour at the annual Trophies and Awards Banquet to be held in the Great Hall of London's medieval Guildhall on the 23rd October.
The Banquet will be attended by HRH Prince Andrew Duke of York, Grand Master of the Guild.
Official guests include leading figures in aviation from around the world.
Citation:
Forty four years ago pilot-explorers flew to the Moon in primitive spacecraft furnished with what is now the computing power of a child’s toy, and navigation tools that Captain Cook would have recognised. Their skill, ingenuity and courage will be remembered a thousand years from now, and in history their names will rank not only with the Wright Brothers but with Magellan and Christopher Columbus.
Captain James Arthur Lovell USN is the only man to have flown to the Moon twice, but not landed on it. His abilities as an astronaut on Apollo 8 helped pave the way for Neil Armstrong’s first step and, as Commander of Apollo 13; his coolness under pressure gave us an immortal phrase known the world over: “Houston, we have a problem.”
A US Navy night fighter pilot flying the McDonnell F2H Banshee, Captain Lovell graduated at the top of his Test Pilot course and was accepted as an astronaut for the Gemini programme. He flew as pilot on Gemini 7 when it accomplished the first-ever space rendezvous in 1965, and as Command Pilot on Gemini 12 he docked with another spacecraft manually after a rendezvous radar failed – a significant achievement in those pioneering times.
In 1968 Jim Lovell took off for the Moon in Apollo 8 with Frank Borman and Bill Anders, the first human beings to leave earth orbit. As navigator, Captain Lovell used a sextant to measure the spacecraft’s position and calculate mid- course corrections. Many indelibly remember the broadcast to the Earth from 60 miles above the Moon on Christmas Eve: “In the beginning, God created the Heaven and the Earth...”
In the case of Apollo 13, the world remembers Jim Lovell for another flight entirely. The Apollo spacecraft lifted off on April 11th 1970 to land Captain Lovell and Fred Haise on the Moon, with Jack Swigert to pilot the service module. An oxygen tank explosion two days later crippled the spacecraft 200,000 miles away from Earth, threatening to maroon the three men in space, far beyond the help of any human agency.
Through the brilliance and courage of Jim Lovell and his crew, improvising under conditions of extreme hardship and pressure, an almost certain catastrophe was averted and Apollo 13 was brought home safely, with Captain Lovell adjusting course manually by firing the lunar module’s thrusters and engine, using his watch for timing.
The Banquet is open to all Guild members and their guests.
Closing date for applications to attend:
This Friday 4th October
For more information and a downloadable Application Form click the Guild badge
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Tudor Owen
.
Note: The Guild became the
Honourable Company of Air Pilots in February 2014