Philip Wills

In World War II he was second in command of the Air Transport Auxiliary and for this work was appointed CBE.

There is a story that when he became an executive, he installed internal windows in offices in case staff were reading books or falling asleep in working hours.

On 30 April 1938 he broke the British National Distance gliding record in his Göppingen Gö 3 Minimoa (BGA338), flying 209 miles from Heston Aerodrome to St Austell, Cornwall.

In June 1938, he broke the British National Distance Gain of Height gliding record at 10,180 feet over Dunstable Downs, earning him the world's third Gold C Badge.

[3] On 1 July 1939, he again broke the height record at 14,170 feet[4] In 1940, the RAF was concerned that radar (the UK "Chain Home" system) might not detect troop-carrying gliders made of wood that the Germans could use in an invasion of England.

Because from flights over Dunstable Downs he was well aware of so-called "ridge lift" where air rises over an up-slope, on arriving below the cliff top he was able to use the rising air due to the off-shore wind over the cliff to gain enough height to land safely back in the field.

Later in World War II he was second in command of the Air Transport Auxiliary, in charge of allocating ATA pilots to collecting aircraft from factories and ferrying them to RAF Squadron bases.

[1] In 1952 in Spain, he became Open Class World Champion flying a Slingsby Sky sailplane, and was a member of the British Gliding Team until 1958.