DAVID BARNES, OBE
Chief Executive
Prior to joining Industry in the mid 1980’s David Barnes was a serving Royal Air Force Group Captain, working in the Operational Requirements department of MOD as a Deputy director. He was awarded the OBE for work in electronic warfare systems procurement.
During his time in the Royal Air Force David served in an Electrical Engineering role and in the GD Flying Navigation Branch. In this latter capacity he flew more than 6,700 hours on some 15 aircraft types during which he served as a Squadron Flight Commander and a Senior Flight Trials Manager at the AAEE Boscombe Down. In this appointment, he was the Trials Management Project Officer (TMPO) for the Nimrod MR MK1 and the R MK 1 clearance trials. David also supervised the flight trials of the Shackleton MK2 AEW. In his final flying appointment he served as the OC 51 Squadron (Nimrod Recce) at RAF Wyton where he was also the Deputy Station Commander.
Before his retirement from the RAF, as DDOR6 (RAF), he held the sponsorship responsibility for Airborne Communications and Computing, Air to Air Weapons, the UK Air Defence Ground Environment, Ground Radar Systems and the Nimrod AEW and E3A aircraft projects.
David retired from the Royal air Force in mid 1985.
He has since been the recent Chief Executive of Thales Missile Electronics (TME) and Managing Director of Thales Airborne Systems UK. Prior to this, David started in Industry as a Business Development Director with ITT Avionics in Clifton, New Jersey USA. In late1987 he became the AEW Specialist and the General Manager for Communications Navigation and Identification Systems (CNI) for Plessey Avionics.
In 1990 he became Products Executive and Business Development Director for Siemens Plessey Radar and then became the Managing Director of Siemens Plessey Defence Systems Division. David joined British Aerospace as Managing Director of the Defence Systems Division in 1997 before leaving to join Thomson-Thorn Missile Electronics in 1998.
In recent years, David Barnes has been appointed as the Business Development Director for Air Systems in Thales UK. He has also become the Chairman of the UAVS and the Chairman of the SBAC Autonomous Systems Steering Group. He is a Board member of the Farnborough Aerospace Consortium and the President of the Royal Institute of Navigation.
David has recently been appointed at the Chief Executive Officer of Farnborough Aerospace Consortium.