5 March 2015 John Bolton - Testing Airplanes

At Thursday's meeting, President Peter Farr welcomed visitors Norman Morrison, Alan Dougan and Matthew Aitken from Auchterarder and District Rotary Club and Paul Phillips.
The speaker was retired test pilot Group Captain John Bolton. John entertained the audience with video clips, photos and stories from his long career in aviation, starting when he joined the Air Training Corps while at school in Glasgow then joined the University Air Squadron where he received a lot of training  before getting a job with the British Aircraft Corporation. After joining the RAF, he moved to the Empire Test Pilots School at Boscombe Down where he flew many different types of plane. During his career, John has flown over 80 different aircraft as a test pilot.
After posing the question 'Why test'? John showed a video of some spectacular flying incidents which illustrated the reasons very well! One of the tests he illustrated was a cabin evacuation test where over 800 'passengers' were forced to evacuate in 90 seconds when half of the emergency exits were deliberately jammed. Only minor injuries were allowed!
Following a lively question and answer session, Audrey Cooper thanked John for a very interesting and entertaining talk.