Project Description
Rick is a new Canadian citizen, born in the US. He maintains a dental practice in Niagara Falls, NY. Rick is a winner of multiple Unlimited aerobatic contests (Canadian-American Aerobatic Challenge, Kathy Jaffe Challenge, and Henry Haigh Challenge) in Pitts and Sukhoi aircraft. He has been an air show performer in Sukhoi SU26 Harvard, and Spitfire Mk IX, with aerobatic solos and formation aerobatics for 12 years. Rick was founder and a competitor of the Aerobatic Race Challenge in Canada, and was a member of the Canadian Heritage Flight team in the Spitfire Mk IX with a CF18. He has been an Independent test pilot for Swift Fuels, GT propellers, and Hartzell Propellers. He was the focus of episodes of the Discovery Channel and Aviators TV and is a contributing writer for Sport Aerobatics and Classic Wings magazine. Rick is one of a few pilots alive to fly the Spitfire, Messerschmitt, and Hurricane, the 3 principal fighters of the Battle of Britain. He is currently the only pilot in North America that has flown the Messerschmitt Bf109G, and has flown about 40 different aircraft types. Rick is an ICAS aerobatic competency evaluator for piston warbird, high and low performance solo and formation acts, and has accumulated more than 2500 hours of high performance tailwheel time. Rick is currently flying a Harvard Mk IV on the air show circuit. He has written an aerobatic operations manual for CHAA.