Meet the Members
High flyer…
We chat with Richard Ward, former North Sea oil rig pilot, long haul Dreamliner pilot and member of the Stampe Formation Display Team
W
elcome Richard. Could you tell us something of your career please?
I went to Sir John Deane’s Grammar School in Cheshire, where Mr Vernon, who ran the School Aeroclub, nurtured my growing interest in aviation, organising trips to airshows and museums. My first job in aviation was a summer job as assistant groundsman at Barton Aerodrome, working for the Lancashire Aeroclub where I got paid partly in cash and partly in flying, as I already had a PPL from the age of 17. Although I only ever wanted to fly, I listened to my parents’ advice and continued in education, ending up at Kingston Polytechnic doing aeronautical engineering. The only positive I took from Kingston was studying at Tom Sopwith’s old factory at Canbury Park, and I quickly discovered I was no engineer but, with a distinct lack of flying jobs in the early 1980s, I was accepted onto number 59 ATCO Cadet course and embarked on a brief career in air traffic control. While waiting for the course to start, I worked for six months as ramp dispatcher with Servisair at Manchester. During the ATCO course, while struggling to come to grips with Approach Radar, I saw in the back of Flight International an offer of a sponsorship to CPL(H) with Bristow Helicopters, and two months later I began a long and happy association with Redhill Aerodrome when I started on course HP27 flying the Bell 47. One year on, and having met my future wife, Susie, I
Above Richard Ward with the Renault powered Stampe, G-HJSS which he is custodian of since owner, John Smith, retired from flying aged 84
moved to Aberdeen with a shiny new CPL and converted to the AS332L Super Puma, or as Bristow called it, the Bristow Tiger. Having trained as a tower controller at Aberdeen, I was reunited with friends and colleagues, now on the other end of the microphone and spent four very happy years and 2,500 hours flying, until an opportunity to move into the fixed-wing market appeared in the shape of sponsored conversion at Oxford’s CSE aviation, courtesy of Air Europe. Six months later, AirEurope went into administration and in March 1991 I was on the dole with a mere 55 hours on a Fokker 100. Fortunately, this only lasted four weeks as I talked myself Into a job at Biggin Hill as an air traffic controller, bizarrely earning more than I had as a second officer in Air Europe, and supplementing my salary by flying helicopters freelance on my days off. At Biggin, I was known as ‘Gizza’, as in ‘Gizza’ job, and all the pestering finally paid dividends when I was hired as a Boeing 757 co-pilot by Air 2000. And that brings the story up to date. Although I haven’t changed jobs in 28 years, the airline has morphed around me becoming First Choice Airways and then merging in 2008 to become Thomson, and now TUI Airways, and I am currently a TRE flying the Boeing 787 Dreamliner.
What had originally sparked your interest in aviation?
I blame my father for taking me to see the film, The Battle of Britain and my uncle Frank who trained as a wireless operator and told stories of flying in the back of Ansons,
50 | LIGHT AVIATION | May 2020
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