I was told a story (by Dick himself, I think) about the day that Bill turned up in his jet while Dick was on his helicopter course. Whilst waiting for Dick to land, Bill put his feet up in the crewroom and relaxed, only for Dick's instructor to walk in and see him.
He gave "Dick" a mouthful, expecting a "Yessir, sorry sir!" in response. Instead he got an unexpected tirade of abuse in return....from lookalike Bill (quite deliberately done)!
You can imagine the mayhem that caused.
I flew with Dick a few times when I was a junior pilot on Pumas in the late 1970s. His reputation went before him and he was known not to tolerate fools. I was pleasantly surprised to find he was a perfect gent and very keen to help me improve my skills and knowledge. He was also always keen to discuss his lime green, 1950s, oval rear windscreen VW Beetle, his pride and joy.
He did my first Puma night categorisation check ride from Odiham in late 1979. We were flying in very poor visibility in haze and were going to a field landing site for me to do a few circuits. The crewman of the only other aircraft flying was in the process of switching off and gathering in the night landing "T" lights because they thought everyone else would have scrubbed due to the weather. Dick asked me to make a decision about continuing with the sortie or not, and I said not. However, he made me persevere with the navigation and asked the other pilot to remain on the ground with just his nav lights on until our arrival.
I landed alongside the other Puma (flown by the late Derek Smith, IIRC) and Dick said: "There you are then, well done; if you can navigate here and land safely in these weather conditions, without a night "T", you can certainly do it
with one!"
He took control, told me to relax, and flew us back to base. And I knew I had just passed the checkride.
