From left to right, H K Rao, Alf Nottingham, Mike Newman and Mr Sharma at the 1989 Congress in the Chandis Hotel, Athens.   At that time Alf Nottingham (ALAE) was AEI Secretary General, and Mike Newman (ALAE) was the President of AEI. 
Mr Rao and Mr Sharma represented the All India Aircraft Engineers Association, one of the AEI founder members. The trophy being presented has a label on it which states "Presented to AEI by the All India Aircraft Engineers Association, Delhi Region".  The trophy is located in the ALAE (1981) Bagshot office on permanent display.

It is well to remember that in the early days of the AEI membership Unions were from India, Australia, Norway, Sweden and the United Kingdom.  The Indians who had held licensed engineer status for many years lost the right to use a personal licence.  Showing great courage they took the Indian Civil Aviation Authority to court and after an epic battle were able to eventually reclaim the right to a personal licence to certify aircraft fit for flight.  This occurred in the late 1970's. 
At a similar time in the 1970's the United Kingdom had the same problems.  The Civil Aviation Authority had come to the conclusion that the Boeing 707 was too complicated for any one person to certify and that all aircraft rectification work should fall on the shoulders of the company authority.
The ALAE was formed to fight this situation.  ALAE did not go to court, but used the parliament and the government to win their point.  In the early days the ALAE picketted the Civil Aviation Offices; it caused quite a furore at the time.  The AEI has come a long way since those times but you can never be complacent, or think you have won, there is always someone who thinks they can do it cheaper by getting rid of the licensed engineer and using company methods to control safety issues. 

The AEI is wise to those situations, long may it remain so.  As the English saying goes, "Give them an inch they will take a mile".  Beware the alternate means of compliance (AMC to Section 'M').
We should be fighting every AMC as we fought for the licence all those years ago.

Text: Mike Newman, ALAE

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Enjoy while we are still working on
this  history page.

 1942. Aircraft industry pictures