Peter Hoar flew for BAC at Wisley under Brian Trubshaw until 1971 when the airfield was returned to Green Belt. He met Barnes Wallis several times at Brooklands and at his home in Effingham to discuss the design of a small airship for advertising. He joined British Caledonian flying BAC 1-11s and DC10s. Managing Director of Aces High in his spare time, flying at air shows and for film projects. Joined British Airways (when it took over British Caledonian) and was on the first course for the Airbus A320 and he supported Gordon Corps of Airbus at meetings to defend the A320 and its fly-by-wire systems during its introductory period. After British Airways, Peter flew for British Mediterranean Airways to the Middle East and new ex-Russian states until his retirement. From 2003 to 2006, he worked periodically with a team in Baghdad attempting to recover an Airbus A300 hit by terrorist missile in 2003. He has been enjoying a quieter life since!
Portfolio Type: Trustees
Dr. Iain Murray

Dr. Iain Murray is an Honorary Lecturer in Computing, with a long-standing interest in the public understanding of science in general, and the work of Sir Barnes Wallis in particular.
He taught Computing at the University of Dundee for over 30 years, where his main research interests were the inclusion of emotion in synthesised speech, and the use of speech in systems for people with disabilities. He has more than thirty publications from this work.
Iain is the author of Bouncing-Bomb Man: the Science of Sir Barnes Wallis which describes Wallis’s wide range of inventions, how they worked and how they were better than contemporary designs. He is also the author of the Haynes Dam Busters Manual and Vickers Wellington Manual which describe the technical aspects of Wallis’s military inventions. He has contributed to several TV programmes, including Foyle’s War, Dambusters: Building the Bouncing Bomb, Who Do You Think You Are? and Building Hitler’s Supergun and he has spoken to a range of audiences about Wallis’s work.
In 2010, he initiated a diving project to locate and recover some of Wallis’s bouncing bombs from a loch in Scotland; a number of bombs were located, and a recovery operation conducted by divers from BSAC’s East Cheshire Sub-Aqua Club and the Royal Navy successfully lifted two Highballs in July 2017 – these are now on display at Brooklands Museum, Surrey, and the de Havilland Museum, Hertfordshire.
Iain lives in Dundee, and is married with three daughters.
Chris Henderson

Chris Henderson trained as a communications engineer with the BBC and worked on the first series of ‘Top of the Pops’ and ‘Pinky and Perky’ in Manchester before moving to Broadcasting House.
In 1966 he decided to leave broadcasting and joined the Royal Air Force for training as a navigator. On completion of his flying training courses he was posted to the V-Force and was the first ‘ab initio’ navigator plotter on Vulcan B2s. After his first tour on 35 Sqn at RAF Akrotiri, Cyprus, he returned to the UK and 617 Sqn at RAF Scampton where he met Sir Barnes Wallis on the 30th anniversary of the Dams Raid. Further training and a staff appointment at the College of Air Warfare followed.
He completed the RAF’s GD Aerosystems post-graduate course before appointments at the Aeroplane & Armament Experimental Establishment (A&AEE), RAF Boscombe Down, where he was responsible for evaluating the Jaguar’s weapon aiming and navigation system. He was then attached to the Flight Test Dept at BAe Warton as the A&AEE liaison officer involved in the testing of both versions of the Tornado. He was the first RAF navigator to fly a production Tornado F2 fighter as well as several of the prototypes which included one test sortie involving rapid-rolling at Mach 2. His last flying tour was as a squadron commander at the Air Navigation School, RAF Finningley before his final two tours as a staff officer in NATO Headquarters in the Netherlands and Italy.
After retirement to the Yorkshire Dales he has been involved in IT training in Further Education and local businesses. Pastimes are photography, cooking, golf and railway history.
Gerry Carroll

Gerry Carroll’s interest in aviation started as a boy. His wartime years were spent watching Squadrons of Lancasters and Halifaxes flying out of Middleton St George and Croft airfields on their wartime missions. By the time he left school Gerry’s family had moved to Wolverhampton where he began five year engineering apprenticeship with Guy Motors. On completion he transferred his newly acquired skills into mining engineering, installing and maintaining the hauling mechanism to bring men and coal to and from the working face.
An opportunity to enter sales provided a new direction. As with many, Gerry learned his trade with Peal Insurance (as it then was), before transferring to join the Rootes Group, whose Hillman, Humber and Sunbeam cars represented a significant part of the Coventry motor trade. Based at Castle Bromwich and later with major Birmingham motor dealerships Gerry took on the task of competing with the locally produced Austin vehicles.
Gerry’s selling skills were further honed by a period with Hoover, whose sales training methods were held as second to none. Their products introduced Gerry to the domestic sector. Combined with his engineering background this led to his final move into the hygiene and safety sector, initially as a medical sales representative progressing to advising food manufacturers, the brewing and leisure industries and livestock breeding establishments on production and storage hygiene.
Retiring at 58, Gerry found more time to devote to his interest in aviation. Invited to serve on the Committee of the Barnes Wallis Memorial Trust in 2000 Gerry saw this as the ideal opportunity to combine his joint interests of engineering and aviation. Gerry soon became one of the Trust’s leading protagonists and served as its Chairman for two terms. Under his guidance the Trust established a strong presence, and built a loyal following in the Humberside area which had been home to Wallis and his young family in the 1920s while he was working on the R-100. It is from this sound base that the Foundation now seeks to expand its activities.