I was a medically temporarily grounded army pilot when Rick was at the IFS in London. He was a total star in all respects in the short time I was there in Theobald St. Absolute gent despite huge rank difference between us. A living aviation legend. God bless you Sir

I had the pleasure of doing 18 sorties with Rick as my instructor at RAF Valley on Folland Gnats in 1976 when he was Deputy CFI and a young newly promoted squadron leader. Great guy to fly with, taught me loads and he knew exactly how much pressure to apply to get the best out of me without turning me into a gibbering wreck. You could screw up and that was not a problem so long as you had done your homework, but don't make the same mistake twice. If you screwed up through lack of preparation, then god help you! And that was the way it needed to be. Happy days. :)

An absolute joy to listen to this gentleman, an extremely knowledgeable and experienced pilot with a true love of aviation. Thank you sir!

Rick was a pilot on 92 SQN when my father was a sootie back in late 60s. i have a photo of me and my mum standing next to his Lightning at the time.

That was such an interesting vlog to watch! Can I firstly say to all the People in the R.A.F for protecting us, you see my mum died aged 95 on the 27th of September 2019 Mum was in the WRAF and worked in SIRO with 4 other ladies! All gone now! I used to go to Duxford as a young lad and it was lovely to here this gentleman was involved at Duxford! Again thank you to all involved, past and present and future for looking after us! You are all wonderful!

Thoroughly enjoyed this episode. Such a wonderful chap, so enthusiastic and inspiring. What a career. 加油加油

Oh to hear that voice again brings a lot of good memories back.

Great interview. You have to really admire these pilots and navigators who flew in the F3's. I think only the special few would be capable of such a demanding environment.

Amazing interview , absolutely top quality operator which only reiterates the exceptional personnel which run throughout the RAF 🇬🇧.

Fantastic interview- brilliant career by this gentleman.

An asside about the intercepts of straying light planes in Germany: A chap from my neighbour town worked for the RAF air control back in the day. If I remember rightly, he told me they called these cases "Brass monkeys". Sometimes, these brass monkeys would be dangerously close to the border when the alarms were given, requiring the Lightnings to speed up a bit more. Whenever they went supersonic in the process, the track of their flights could be read from the adresses of the glazier bills where windows had to be replaced. The RAF would kindly add these bills to the bill they themselves handed to the light plane pilots for their potentially life saving sevice, as the GDR air force wasn't too kind with people who were bad at navigating. I remember one report where a glider was caried across the border with a thermal. An NVA helicopter took off and set itself just above the glider, ultimately causing it to stall and crash. The GDR was not shying away from using deadly force against civilians. However many thousands the RAF charged for their service , it was a bargain thus.

Shall never forget the ADV-Spitfire routine at Mildenhall. Excellent career well told... look forward to the autobiography...

Wow there's not much this chap hasn't done. Lives and breathes aviation in every facet. I'm sure he'd be a joy to fly with.

Another great video. Thanks Aircrew Interview.

Great video! Rick still has a touch of his SA accent. My uncle was a brigadier in the SAAF and flew Mirages in the 60s. Rick reminds me of him.

Really pleased I've come across this channel, thanks for the uploads !

Brilliant interview, pleased Rick mentioned RAF Acklington in Northumberland, I lived near this base.

Just discovered your channel and have subscribed. Great interview! I grew up near Binbrook in the 70's / 80's so the Lightning was a very noisy and exciting part of my childhood :)

brilliant video again! Thank you😀

Wow, an amazing career! 👀👍

What a career! Great interview and interviewee again.

What a lovely man ! Seems grateful that his ability has led him to have such a stellar career

Another excellent interview. Cheers guys

Fascinating interview, fascinating chap and career..

Staggering career. But a man like that must have a steely side as well as a genial side.

what a cool guy, what a experience this guy had !

The audio on this is so much better! New microphones? Loved hearing about the Tornado

Great interview, what a career this man has had.

Great clip about a true RAF icon, otherwise unobtainable info. More please !

What a man and what a fantastic career

Great interview. What a nice bloke, quite unassuming despite his lofty career steps.

Loved the F3! I remember the display F3 in the early 90s with the "raspberry ripple" paint scheme

Great footage! I believe it was the F3 and the Vulcan as a 6 year old in 92' that made me truly fall in love with aircraft. That Low level fully swept fast pass still can't be beat for me and is what's missing on the airshow circuit today. loved the GR1/4 however it wasn't the F3 in terms of a display jet.

What a wonderful story from a very nice man on a great aircraft. I really miss the F.3, thought it was a good looking fighter and after having seen a display of it at Leeuwarden AFB (Royal Netherlands AF) - I thought it was in 2004 - I fell in love with it. I always wondered how the F.3 would fare if it got the EJ-200 engines of the Typhoon, new avionics, radar and Meteor missiles. Certainly, Typhoon probably is much better both in BVR and WVR ACM, but I'm still convinced that with modest means the F.3 could have stayed relevant for much longer, freeing up budget for more Typhoons in a multirole capability. If it weren't for the COIN mission (mainly air-ground) in Afghanistan and Iraq and the budget devouring F-35, no government would have been in a hurry to sell off such a marvellous aircraft with such potential. (Same goes for the Harrier). I hope to see some DACT HUD-camera footage on this channel one day of F.3s engaging Tomcats, Eagles and F-16s one day. I hope to see that experienced RAF pilots could make this bird sing against those using clever tactics. Kind regards from the Netherlands.

Superb!

took to the air amazing

Good interview. But surely the Tornado had the Mauser BK-27 revolver cannon? That's what we had stood up against the wall in RAE Bedford after our aircraft was delivered and we disarmed it. Later I designed an instrumented round to monitor the temperature the ammo got up to in supersonic flight and when the gun had been fired.

Great!

Respect....

PE as we called him was the Boss when I was on 229, he’s put a bit of weight on !

Does the swing wing (forwards), negate the need for flaps?

MAnual wingsweep vs auto wingsweep, is really much like manual vs auto transmission, it probably won't hurt you that much if your wing isnt quite off, actually it could be worse with your car's transmission to deal with it wrong!

If only it had been fitted with more powerful engines, particularly in the dry thrust range, it would have been truly world class.

Has the F3 ever shot anything down? Question prompted by the comment that this would be the plane of choice for going to war.

Man please lower that intro volume...i'm getting calls from the mayor of beijing waking up thats how loud this is...