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.
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