Tony, who flew Concorde as a First Officer from 1987 to 1993, retired fully from aviation in 2005 after completing 46 years of continuous aviation service. He started his professional aviation career in the Royal Air Force, initially training on the Hunting Percival Provost (the Piston Provost) and then the Vam Pire T11 trainer.

He was then posted to No 49 Squadron flying the first of Britain’s “V” Bombers, the Valiant, flying the aircraft for 5 years and along the way became its youngest Captain. Following the break up of the Valiant Force, he flew as a Qualified Flying Instructor on the Jet Provost at the Royal Air Force College Cranwell. He completed his 15 years military time flying as a First Officer on the Royal Air Force’s VC10 aircraft.

After leaving the Royal Air Force Tony joined the British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC)  later to become British Airways (BA) as a First Officer on their Super VC10 aircraft, which Tony flew until their retirement from British Airway’s service in 1980. As at this time British Airways had too many pilots and not enough aircraft to use them on, he was then sent home on basic pay for a year, which lasted for 30 months. During this period he flew, for no reward, as a joint Captain on a HS125 series 3B for a private owner until being recalled by British Airways, still as a Senior First Officer, when he was assigned to fly the BAC 1-11 for 4 years. Tony’s aviation dream eventually materialised when he started a 6 year programme on Concorde as a Senior First Officer. After Concorde Tony gained his Command on the Boeing 757 and Boeing 767 based in Edinburgh (in his home country!) until retiring from British Airways, having reached the (then) compulsory retirement age of 55.

After retirement from BA Tony took the position as Check and Training Captain on the Boeing 767-300ER aircraft with Air Europe based in Italy, until once again the old age thing cropped up, and the Italians changed their aviation law to stop flying at 60. He flew briefly for Ansett of Australia, flying out of Nairobi and training the Kenyan Airways pilots who were converting from Airbus A310 to the Boeing 767-300ER. This was a short-lived position as Ansett soon went into liquidation. Tony then took a position in the training role on the Boeing 757-200 and Boeing 767-300ER with Air Holland in The Netherlands. He stayed in The Netherlands until final retirement at the age of 65.