Aviation Week Group Scoops Aerospace Journalist Awards
With high hopes, they gathered at the Intercontinental Le Grand
Hotel next to the Place de l'Opera on Saturday evening for the
annual Aerospace Journalism of the Year Awards 2003, organized
by the World Leadership Forum with the support of the Royal Aeronautical
Society and the Aero-Club de France.
Shortlisted writers included 14 from the Aviation Week Group,
and six of them went home with a coveted 'Budgie.'-the aviation
writers' equivalent of an Oscar.
Journalists from Business and Commercial Aviation (B/CA) took
home no fewer than four awards-the most for any single magazine.
The Gulfstream Award for Best Business Aircraft Submission went
to our man Fred George for his article 'Airbus Corporate Jet.'
Dick McKinney picked up The Bombardier Award for Best Air Transport
Submission for his story 'Circling Traps'. David Esler's 'Cabotage,
Customs and VAT' article about the pitfalls of operating non-EU
business aircraft in Europe was adjudged winner of The Raytheon
Award for Best Business or Financial Submission. And Robert Searles,
a former Show News editor, took The MTU Award for the Best Propulsion
Submission for his 'PT6: The Little Engine That Could, And Did'
from his monthly 'Reflections' column in B/CA.
Not content with a quartet of trophies, an Aviation Week Group
writer took the top accolade, not just of this year, but of the
last ten years. Show News' John Fricker, doyen of British aviation
journalists, was recipient of The Boeing Decade of Excellence
Award. 'Decade' hardly does justice to a man who can claim that
one of his first assignments as a journalist was to cover RAF
and U.S. Army Air Force operations during World War II "in
between dodging V-1s, V-2s and the odd Blitzkrieg." As readers
of Show News and many other publications will know, John's erudite,
informed style has lost none of its edge in the intervening decades.
