The Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators (GAPAN) is one of the Livery Companies of the City of London. The Guild was established in 1929 and was granted the status of a Livery Company in 1956. The Guild is responsible for advising the government on air safety and aeronautics.
The Guild ranks eighty-first in the order of precedence of Livery Companies and fourth in the order of precedence of the Modern Livery Companies. It is unique amongst City Livery Companies in having active Regional Committees in Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand and North America, and unique in being permitted to continue to be called a Guild notwithstanding its status as a Livery Company.
The Guild's motto is Per Cælum Via Nostra, Latin for Our Way Is By The Heavens.
Its objectives are:
To establish and maintain the highest standards of air safety through the promotion of good airmanship among pilots and navigators.
To maintain a liaison with all authorities connected with licensing, training and legislation affecting pilot or navigator whether private, professional, civil or military.
To constitute a body of experienced airmen available for advice and consultation and to facilitate the exchange of information.
To strive to enhance the status of air pilots and air navigators.
To assist air pilots and air navigators in need through the Benevolent Fund.
The Court 2012/13:
Master: Air Marshal Clifford Spink CB CBE FRAeS Cliff Spink
Immediate Past Master: Captain Walter Epton FRAeS
Master-Elect: His Honour Judge Tudor Owen FRAeS
Wardens:
Mrs Dorothy Pooley FRAeS
Sqn Ldr Christopher Ford MBE
Captain Peter Benn
Clerk: Paul Tacon BA FCIS
Chaplain: The Revd Dr Peter Mullen BA PhD Peter Mullen
Famous quotes containing the words air, pilots and/or navigators:
“The Laws of Nature are just, but terrible. There is no weak mercy in them. Cause and consequence are inseparable and inevitable. The elements have no forbearance. The fire burns, the water drowns, the air consumes, the earth buries. And perhaps it would be well for our race if the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Man were as inevitable as the punishment of crimes against the Laws of Nature—were Man as unerring in his judgments as Nature.”
—Henry Wadsworth Longfellow (1807–1882)
“You know what I’m talking about. This business has changed. Flyers aren’t pilots anymore, they’re engineers. This is a college man’s game. Our work is done. The pioneering is over.”
—Frank W. Wead (1895?–1947)
“It is true, we are such poor navigators that our thoughts, for the most part, stand off and on upon a harborless coast, are conversant only with the bights of the bays of poesy, or steer for the public ports of entry, and go into the dry docks of science, where they merely refit for this world, and no natural currents concur to individualize them.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)