Award Recipients

2007
Dr. Dieter W. Reisinger, Air Transport

2008
Gerard Temme

2009
Pat Svatek

2010
Billie Flynn and Mark Skoog

2011
MajGen Desmond E. Barker, SAAF

2012
Capt. Dave Carbaugh, Boeing Company

2013
Maurice Girard, Bombardier

2014
Gulfstream Aerospace

2015
Daniel Schwenzel, Airbus Helicopters

2016
Not Awarded

2017
Not Awarded

2018
Not Awarded

2019
Not Awarded

2020
Award Retired

Background and Philosophy

The birth of the European Flight Test Safety Award took place during the funeral of Gérard Guillaumaud, who was lost with the second Grob spn prototype in an accident on November 29 th, 2006. His fiancée, Heidi Biermeier, refused to accept that this would be the conclusion of Gérard’s spirit and passion for flying and aircraft, and found the funeral insufficient to honour him and his life’s work. Her very deep wish was to keep Gérard´s memory alive and to initiate a symbol which would pay tribute to Gérard’s life’s work and his constant endeavours to develop and improve safety in test flying. From this event the European Flight Test Safety Award was established by Heidi Biermeier, with support from Gérard’s colleagues and friends Tore Reimers, Al Lawless and Chris Worning.

The European Flight Test Safety Award is based on the following philosophy as its guiding principle:

Gérard Guillaumaud lost his life in execution of his profession, but his spirit will still be alive. Gérard´s passion for flying and aircraft should be a legacy for us for achieving one aim: improving flight test safety.

The final winner of the Gerard Guillamaud European Flight Test Safety Award was presented in 2015.