Nicholas Goodhart

Rear-Admiral Hilary Charles Nicholas Goodhart CB FRAeS (28 September 1919 – 9 April 2011) was an engineer and aviator who invented the mirror-sight deck landing system for aircraft carriers. He was also a world champion and record breaker in gliding.

Early life Goodhart was born at Inkpen, Berkshire, the son of a patent engineer. He was educated at Miss White's Kintbury, and Connaught House Weymouth.

Early career Goodhart entered the Royal Naval College at Dartmouth in the Hawke Term in 1933. He then attended the Royal Naval Engineering College at Keyham, Devonport. He served as an engineering lieutenant, and saw action in the evacuation of Crete in 1941 on which was hit by two bombs. He then served on and saw more action escorting convoys to Malta and the assaults on Italy over the next two years. Goodhart therefore invented the mirror-sight deck landing system in 1951. The device was first introduced in the Royal Navy in 1954 and by the US Navy in 1955. Shortly before Dennis Cambell, with Lewis Boddington, invented the angled flight deck. The invention of the mirror system and the angled flight deck greatly increased the safety for jet aircraft when landing on an aircraft carrier. There was also a saving in arrester gear units and barriers – Ark Royal needed only four wires and one (emergency only) barrier. The reduction in weight and the extra space that this conferred enabled more mess-decks to be fitted in, thus reducing congestion in living spaces. It was recorded that for US carriers, the landing accident rate fell by 80% from 35 per 10,000 landings in 1954 to 7 per 10,000 landings in 1957. The US Navy awarded Goodhart the Legion of Merit for his invention and he received an undisclosed sum from the Admiralty. He was also at various times a member of Cambridge University Gliding Club and Lasham Gliding Society in Hampshire.

He began gliding competitively, first sharing a glider with his brother, Tony, winning the British Team Championship in 1950, in which a glider was flown on alternate days by different people (a so-called "team").

In 1955 he climbed to in the USA and became the first British glider pilot to gain a complete Diamond Badge with all three "diamonds". Later in 1955 he broke the British National Altitude Record in a Schweizer SGS 1-23 in California climbing to .

He was a member of the British team at the World Championships from 1956 to 1972. In 1956 at Saint-Yan in France, he and Frank Foster won the World Gliding Two Seater Championship in a Slingsby Eagle two seater. The US Soaring magazine noted that the only single seater to beat them was the winner, Paul MacCready.

He finished in second place in the single seater World Championships in 1958 Leszno, Poland, and fourth in 1960 and 1972. He was British single-seater champion on three occasions (1962, 1967 & 1971), and in second place on four others.

He finished first in the American Championships in 1955, though as foreigner could not be the US Champion and was placed "above first"

At Lasham on 10 May 1959 he declared a goal of Portmoak in Scotland and achieved a record goal flight of in a Slingsby Skylark 3 at an average speed of . This is still the UK goal-distance-record for gliders of wingspan not greater than 20 metres; and the speed record for a goal flight. During his gliding career he held eleven British records.

Other activities Goodhart was a consultant to Boeing (1973–1980) during which time the Royal Navy acquired a hydrofoil HMS Speedy and the RAF acquired its first Chinooks.

He was elected Master of the Worshipful Company of Grocers of the City of London. He finished 35th of 350 in the 1951 Monte Carlo Rally.

He proposed a method of suppressing hurricanes during their formation. His proposal involved covering of ocean with a reflective material using four aircraft, each with a 2 km wingspan. He was persuaded it would not work, so he switched the concept to putting out forest fires.

At the age of 88 he raised funds for a hospice near Exeter by abseiling down Cullompton church.