About Dick Poole update 15Feb21  

Dick Poole is a trustee of the Royal Aero Club Trust, responsible for the administration of their collection of paintings, trophies and artefacts.

 He started as a Vickers-Armstrongs apprentice in 1960 and worked as an aerodynamicist in the Military Aircraft Project Office. In 1969 he transferred to Flight Test at Wisley and worked on Viscount, VC 10 and BAC 1-11. He then transferred to the Concorde programme at Fairford until joining Hawker's Flight Development Department at Dunsfold where he was involved in testing Harrier, Hawk and Hunter T8M.

He was made Chief Flight Test Engineer in 1984 and was promoted in 1987 to the role of Assistant Chief Designer for the UK portion of the AV8B. This was followed with a number of Chief Engineer type roles at Kingston until moving to Warton as Chief Engineer Light Combat Aircraft and New Jet Trainers.

 He finished his career working on Sea Harrier replacements and JSF, first with McDonnel -Douglas and then Lockheed-Martin. Whilst at Dunsfold he accumulated 300 hours as a Flight Test Observer.

He retired as a consultant in 2000.