The Sir James Martin Award

Awarded to an individual, a group, team or organisation, which has made an outstanding, original and practical contribution leading to the safer operation of aircraft or the survival of aircrew or passengers.

2020 Awarded to:  814 Naval Air Squadron Survival Equipment Section

The Survival Equipment (SE) section of 814 Naval Air Squadron (NAS) has worked tirelessly over the last 12 months to support a busy and fragmented operational programme whilst showing further capacity for initiative, resourcefulness and efficiency. The four-person team, led by a Leading Survival Equipment Technician, has not only supported several embarked Ship’s and tanker deployed flights, but also shore based elements at short notice in support of critical national tasking, often resulting in long periods or deployment or time on duty rosters at very high readiness.

In addition to the ongoing routine maintenance of all 814 NAS survival equipment, in the last year the team have:

*  Re-written the 814 Squadron Management System to improve efficiency and effectiveness with a direct improvement in availability.
*  Taken ownership of TEM23 qualified personnel (aircraft engineers who are given limited SE maintenance training in order to conduct maintenance when embarked in small ships) to improve quality assurance and supervision. 
*  Taken the initiative to propose significant changes to the TEM23 course in order to improve efficiency and training output for 814 NAS requirements.
*  Seamlessly re-located 814 NAS SE section during a Squadron building move in the face of several infrastructure challenges (including re-design of a new workshop area) with minimal supervision and whilst continuing to deliver core output to a high standard.
*  Drafted new Terms of Reference for all SE personnel to better reflect their roles and responsibility.
*  Greatly improved communication between the SE section and aircrew by regularly giving update briefs and attending daily shareholders meetings to improve integration.
*  Sought and been granted approval to give additional engineering authorisations to Leading Hands in order to allow continuity of SE cover during multiple concurrent detachments and embarkations and reduce demand on the Station SE section.
*  Had the foresight to pre-empt a pinch-point in availability of aircrew life preservers due to introduction of a new emergency beacon and carefully managed the available items to ensure availability for embarked and high readiness units.

The small team have directly and significantly contributed to the overall effectiveness of 814 NAS with their positive attitude and continuous drive for improvement.  During a recent independent assurance visit by Naval Flying Standards Flight the Section was seen as having best practice and assessed as outstanding.  At every opportunity this team have exceeded the responsibilities asked of them and have set a standard for others to follow.

Due to this outstanding contribution and for directly enhancing the survival of aircrew through their day to day conduct, the 814 NAS Survival Equipment Section are deserving winners of the Sir James Martin Award.

Previous Winners:

1968/69 Lieutenant Commander Tarver

1969/70 Flight Lieutenant R C Shuster

1971  Not Awarded

1971/72 Group Captain J K Mason

1973  Not Awarded

1973/74 Colonel W P Schane

1975  Not Awarded

1975/76 Group Captain A J Barwood

1976/77 E L Ripley Esq

1977/78 Flight Sergeant D J Jones

1978/79 D Johnson Esq

1979/80 Lieutenant Commander D R Taylor MBE

1980/81 Master Air Loadmaster David Bullock G C (posthumously)

1981/82 Geoffrey Harrison Esq

1983  Not Awarded

1983/84 Clifford Gaskell Esq

1985  Not Awarded

1985/86 Wing Commander R McCluskey AFC RAF

1987  Not Awarded

1987/88 Air Vice-Marshal P H Howard

1989  Not Awarded

1989/90 Lieutenant Commander Paul Barton RN

1991 - 1992  Not Awarded

1992/93 John W Chappelow Esq

1994  Not Awarded

1994/95 Flight Lieutenant Kevin A Brooks

1995/96 Lieutenant Commander Paul Haywood RN

1997  Not Awarded

1997/98 Major J Norman Ryan MC

1998/99 Dr Christopher Brooks, OMM,OstJ,CD,MBChB,DavMed,FFOM

1999/2000 Air Accidents Investigation Branch Lockerbie Team

2000/01 Chief Petty Officer Terrence Allison

2001/02 Lieutenant Commander Clive Rawson RN

2003  Not Awarded

2003/04 Squadron Leader Jonathan James Harrison RAF

2004/05 Professor Helen Christine Muir OBE MA PhD CPsychol FRAeS

2005/06 John Freeman

2006/07 Captain John Cox

2008  Not Awarded

2008/09 Flight Lieutenant Emily Rickards RAF

2009/10 David Cockburn

2010/11  Captain Linc Alexander

2011/12 Major K E Bryan AAC

2013  Not Awarded

2013/14  Captain James Cunningham AAC

2014/15 Captain Mark Chesney

2016 The Performance Based Navigation (PBN) Research Project Team

2017  SkyDemon

2018  Dr Donough Wilson

2019  Lieutenant Jonathan Moore RN

2020  814 Naval Air Squadron Survival Equipment Section