![]() ![]() He was inspired to join the Navy, and the submarine service, after his name was picked by a pin, during CCF camp at Portland, for a day at sea in the submarine Sleuth. Robert Walmsley was born on Februin Aberdeen, the son of the anatomist Professor Robert Walmsley and Dr Isabel Walmsley, a GP. When he retired in 2003, as the longest serving CDP, his brains and experience were much in demand by industry. Passing it round, the MPs were impressed by how small and light it was and how business-like it seemed, and the rest of his grilling passed in a friendly atmosphere. It was typical of his style that when grilled by the Public Accounts Committee about the troublesome and costly Bowman battlefield radio system, Walmsley wooed his inquisitors by producing a handset from his jacket pocket. The agreement made the UK the only “level 1” partner in the programme and gave Britain a 15 per cent workshare of the estimated 3,000 F35 strike fighters to be built and sold worldwide, generating significant export revenue and supporting up to 25,000 jobs in the UK, “at the absolute cutting edge of aerospace technology,” as Walmsley said. The supersonic stealth Joint Strike Fighter aircraft would combine, the defence secretary Geoff Hoon said, “the agility of a light fighter with the punch of a bomber”. ![]() Perhaps his greatest success was the memorandum of understanding which he signed in 2001, agreeing to pay $200 million towards the Systems Design and Development phase of the Joint Strike Fighter programme to build aircraft for British and US forces.
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