Ann Welch

Ann Courtenay Welch OBE, née Edmonds, (20 May 1917 – 5 December 2002) was a pilot who received the Gold Air Medal from Fédération Aéronautique Internationale (FAI) for her contributions to the development of four air sports - gliding, hang gliding, paragliding and microlight flying.

She stopped this work on 19 August 1942 shortly before the birth of her first daughter. In 1943 under the name "A. C. Douglas" she published Cloud Reading for Pilots. The book, quite unique at the time, remains an excellent introduction on the use of cloud observations in assessing the state of the atmosphere.

Gliding After the war Ann returned to gliding and, with Lorne Welch and Walter Morison (two former prisoners at Colditz Castle), restarted the Surrey Gliding Club at Redhill airfield.

The Surrey Club moved in 1951 to Lasham Airfield and gliding activities at Lasham expanded because other clubs were also based there such as the Army Gliding Club under the management of Colonel Tony Deane-Drummond.

At this time she divorced her first husband and married Lorne Welch.

In her gliding activities she trained many pilots and instructors while bringing up a young family from her first and second husbands.

For twenty years she was in charge of the British Gliding Association's panel of examiners responsible for instructor standards and training.

She was a cross-country glider pilot and flew distance flights in France, Poland and the UK. Flying from Lezno in Poland in 1961, she broke the British women's distance record with a distance flight of 528 km.

She was manager of the British Gliding team at World Gliding Championships for many years.

She wrote many books on aviation subjects.

She flew over 150 types of gliders and powered aircraft. (only the fourth woman to be awarded it following Marcelle Choisnet (1951), Pelagia Majewska (1960) and Anne Burns (1966)).

She received the FAI Gold Air Medal (1980) in recognition of her devotion to the training and encouragement of young pilots. (With the Gold Medal she joined a group that included Yuri Gagarin and Frank Whittle.)

In 1989 she was awarded the FAI's Pelagia Majewska Gliding Medal as an outstanding female glider pilot.

She was appointed MBE in 1953 and advanced to OBE in 1966.

Her love of outdoor activities included sailing and she studied the wind and tides. This was rewarded when in 1997 she was elected an Honorary Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation.

In 2005, the Ann Welch Award was instituted for outstanding contributions to instruction in air sports. It was first presented in 2006 at Royal Aero Club's Awards Ceremony.

Also in 2006, the FAI created the Ann Welch Diploma which may be awarded each year to the pilot or crew of a microlight or paramotor who made the most meritorious flight which resulted in a world record.

Annually, since 2006, usually in late spring, the Royal Aeronautical Society holds its Ann Welch named lecture in London, typically on a General Aviation theme.

Personal life In 1939 Ann (Edmonds) married Graham Douglas, whose family owned Redhill Aerodrome and who had loaned the club the £300 needed to buy the necessary gliders and a winch.

This marriage was dissolved in 1948 and five years later she married Lorne Welch in 1953. Lorne Welch predeceased her.

She was survived by her three daughters., two from Douglas and one from Lorne Welch.