Hugh Merewether, P1127 TP, obituary
 

Telegraph obituary
Hugh Merewether, who has died aged 82, was one of the British test pilots who pioneered the vertical and short take-off and landing (VSTOL) techniques that led to the production of one of the RAF's most successful and enduring combat aircraft, the Harrier.

Hugh Mereweather
 

This truly gallant test pilot, who was long before my ( groundcrew tech photo' -) time on the Harrier test team, will always be remembered for his high speed forced landing at Thorney Island.

He saved a great deal of useful data, but nowadays the instruction would have been to get out, no matter what !

As a sailor too, fair winds & following seas Sir.

Hugh's obit was also aired on Radio Four's "Last Word" on Sunday evening which you can listen to here.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/news/lastword.shtml

Sad news.

Sadly missed; another fast fading part of British aviation history.
Although I never met Hugh he was one among many at that time who inspired me into aviation with thrilling displays at Farnborough. I am honoured to have been able to follow such activities as Hugh’s into test flying and flying at Farnborough, but never with such flare. And if I recall correctly, a quote from Hugh that has been one of my guiding principles in flying – “Airspeed and Upwardness”.

A very late update to this thread, prompted by having to write a company history for Ampair. I really ought to have updated pprune before now.

After Hugh retired in 1970 he took up sailing and water colour painting. I understand from a colleague that he combined these pursuits on occasion. To give himself electricity on his yacht which was a Nicholson 38 called Blue Idyll he designed and built a small wind turbine of about 50W. This was sufficiently successful that by 1973 these small wind turbines started commercial production as the Ampair 50, initially I think from his back shed in Guildford. Over the following years production moved down to Poole and Hugh acted as the design consultant for the Ampair business. He spent quite a lot of his time sailing in the Caribbean, mostly single-handed and Don Street has commented to me that like most single-handers he was very competent but not very fast because he seldom had anyone to match race against. He and Don Street sailed occasionally on Don's ketch Iolaire and whilst on this Don offered to put the first Ampair 50 on Iolaire. This successfully crossed the Atlantic once or twice and became a good advert for Ampair, being replaced after a few years by a more powerful version. To this day the engine-less Iolaire is in service as a commercial charter vessel (with crew) and using Ampair wind and towed (water) generators. To be accurate Iolaire put in a diesel-electric system in 2010 but that's an aside.

Don reckons that he was the originator of the towed generator which was branded 'Aquair' but George Durrant tells me a different story, that it was entirely Hugh's idea. Whatever, the first instance was kludged together by Don using the then scrap Ampair 50 and other pieces of quayside scrap, and was sufficiently successful than Hugh then refined the design over the next few years. He and the lead Ampair technician Frank Ottevanger spent many hours in small boats in Christchurch harbour towing various prop designs for tests. Ultimately this became the Aquair 100.

Hugh and Frank and George also used to use Hugh's sports car for testing the various Ampair 100 design evolutions and by all accounts this was a very scary experience with Hugh driving at top speed near Ringwood, leaning out the window and looking upwards whilst steering along the old New Forest road. According to Frank this was pretty interesting.

When I came in to Ampair in 2005 we were still referring to drawings that were originally penned by Hugh, and it wasn't until about 2009 that we had reached the logical end of the design pathway he had made implicit in the original Ampair series. For sure he was not the person who did most of the work, but his was the initial creative flair.

After he had his heart in 1998 attack George helped organise the repatriation of Blue Idyll from Portugal with the assistance of Ampair's many marine friends. George then used to visit Hugh in his nursing home until his eventual death in 2006.

Petit Plateau

As a user of both Ampair and Aquair on my boat, I am very enlightened to read about the inventor.

I have to say that the Aquair does need a rethink though - the trailing line is vulnerable and cumbersome. I've cobbled together a prototype that uses a dog-legged geared impeller that mounts on the bathing platform so that the impeller sits just behind the rudder. It is a more compact arrangement that can be deployed more easily, does not get bitten off by inquisitive white tip sharks, and does not tangle in the fishing line. It could do with some tidying up for production - pm me if interested!