Trade Unions The Lucas Plan

An important precursor of the plan arose due to a visit of union members to a centre for children suffering from spina bifida. They were horrified to find that the only way that some of the children could move was by dragging themselves on the floor with their hands and arms. This led to the development of a prototype 

Mike Parry Evans, its designer, said that it was one of the most enriching experiences of his life when he delivered the hobcart to the child and saw the pleasure on the child s face. 

It meant more to him, he said, than all the design activity he had been involved in up till then. For the first time in his career, he saw the person who was going to benefit from the product he had designed, and he was intimately in contact with a social human problem. 

He needed to make a clay mould of the child s back so that the seat would support it properly. He was working in a multidisciplinary team together with a medical doctor, a physiotherapist and a health visitor. This illustrates very graphically that aerospace technologists are not only interested in complex esoteric technical problems. It can be far more enriching for them if they are allowed to relate their technology to real human and social problems [12].  

Lucas Aerospace declined to manufacture the hobcart, despite considerable international demand, as it was incompatible with their product range. It was subsequently manufactured elsewhere. 

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