The announcement of a new name, "The Honourable Company of Air Pilots", reflecting the receipt of a Royal Charter from Her Majesty the Queen, is perhaps fulfilment of one of the original aims of the founders of the former Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators. Back in 1929, when the organisation was created, one of its prime aims was that, by offering airmen a place in a City of London Guild, they might be better perceived as professionals. The Guild's founders based their constitution on that of the Honourable Company of Master Mariners, hoping perhaps that one day the four rings on an air pilot's sleeve might be regarded with similar reverence to that of the Captain of an ocean liner. One tends to forget, that 85 years ago pilots were still often regarded as an advocate of a novel form of suicide. The intervening decades have certainly ensured the recognition of flying as a profession has matched its nautical equivalents. The fact that the "Air Pilots" will join the Honourable Company of Master Mariners in receiving similar Royal recognition is a great tribute to the professionalism of aircrew over the decades and the vision of the Guild's founding fathers.
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