Flying Lawyer & BEagle - From my recollections of ULAS, Rick M was a pussy cat - he had a gruff exterior, but underneath he was just great. When I joined, Andy Whittaker was reputed to be a head-banger, but I never received that pleasure from him, although I do remember one or two challenging (a good word for it) debriefs!
The current Shuttleworth pilot team includes 16 pilots, all but one are ex-military, all but three are test pilots.