Upon leaving school I trained and served as a military pilot, flying amongst other things, the Douglas DC-3/C-47. After several years there followed a brief spell flying commercially for a small air charter company, before moving to the UK and getting married. I then spent 16 years in the Royal Air Force, most of the time as an air-to-air refueling and transport pilot, flying the Handley-Page Victor and Vickers VC10, but also as a flying and staff instructor with the RAF's Central Flying School. On one of a series of regular military detachments to the Gulf state of Bahrain, in 2004, I had the opportunity to have a close look in and around the hulk of a Russian 'Buran' shuttle. This particular shuttle was OK-GLI (BST-02), the atmospheric aero test model, and it had been partially dismantled and abandoned for a few years in a dock-side scrap yard following curtailment of an exhibition tour in Australia. I believe that the craft has since been bought by the Auto & Technik Museum in Sinsheim, Germany but due to legal problems is still in Bahrain. (Although it has been shifted slightly from when I saw it, keen Google Earth users can still see the wings and fuselage of this shuttle here: N 26°11'54.18" E 050°36'8.03" )
Having retired from the RAF, I still live in the UK and now fly Boeing 777s as a long-haul pilot for a major European airline. On one flying trip to Chicago in March 2006 I had the pleasure and honour of chatting to a very well-travelled passenger aboard my aircraft - Gemini and Apollo astronaut Jim Lovell! He seemed sure that a 24-hour stop in Chicago was more than enough time to "have a few beers"!
Recently I had been reviving my interest in space, via a couple of astronomy-related software programs and the internet, which is where I came across a link to the Apollo Lunar Surface Journal. When I saw the detailed transcripts and documents available on the website, and the superb audio and visual content, particularly the hi-res mission photos, I became hooked.
Having a general interest in digital and panoramic photography, I am pleased to be able to contribute some updated (re)assembled Apollo panoramas and pdf documents to this huge and wonderful resource that is the ALSJ website!
March 2008