Rick joined the Squadron almost from the start and is one of two of the Squadrons resident skydiving experts.... a pity since the Squadron doesn’t use parachutes.  Coming from a military family, he served in the Army Air Corps as groundcrew for ten years in Germany, Northern Ireland and Hong Kong.  “The cold war years, when Top Gun made it briefly very cool to be groundcrew!”. 

Rick also has a forty year skydiving background and was a regular member of the AAC Free Fall Display Team, “jumping out of Lynx at the tax-payers expense on a regular basis”, to date he has approx. 1500 jumps, and also instructs.

He’s also one of only eight Advanced Rigger Examiners in the country, and helps with the safety of sports parachutes at the National level.   

Feel free to laugh at the size of Ricks feet, which are not a natural feature!  Whilst test jumping an experimental parachute in 1988 in Hong Kong, he sustained spinal injuries, which leaves him paralysed below the knees.  It was thanks to his contacts within the Gazelle Squadron that he discovered that he was eligible to be a BLESMA member, because of this disability.  He also has a fixed wing license, three grown up children, three grandchildren, and a fiancé (but not necessarily in that order).