One of five children, Richard is a quintessential �baby boomer� born in Swindon, Wiltshire in 1947. His father was a RAF pilot who had served with distinction during WWII and the family moved around from base to base after the war including four years in Northern Germany.They immigrated to Fremantle, Western Australia in 1962 where Richard finished high school. He�d attended six primary and three high schools overall, but didn�t mind the new-kid-on-the-block status that entailed.He really wanted to go to Art School, but the opportunities were rare then, so on completing high school in 1966, he joined the Royal Australian Air Force and trained as a pilot. He served for nine years,… including an operational tour in Vietnam when he was badly burned in a helicopter crash. After recovering he flew C-130 Hercules transports including some very interesting flying in New Guinea.Richard left the RAAF in 1975 and joined Ansett Airlines captaining Fokker Friendships, DC-9s, Boeing 727s, 737s and finally 767s. He remained with the company until it ceased business in 2001. He completed his aviation career at the Singapore Flying College on Queensland�s Sunshine Coast Airport where he trained cadets on the LearJet 45 for Singapore Airlines.Leaving aviation behind, Richard completed a Diploma of Visual Art at Tewantin TAFE and is in his graduation year of a BA at the University of the Sunshine Coast, majoring in creative writing. Escape from Fort McCain is a direct result of a University assignment.He married Judy in 1977 and they have twin daughters, Sally and Elizabeth who now live in Melbourne and Brisbane respectively. Richard and Judy live on Kawana Island on the Sunshine Coast.His literature-of-choice is historical fiction, but has eclectic taste where reading is concerned. He describes himself as an �adequate� guitarist and enjoys listening the lost genre of sixties guitar instrumentals.Richard is currently working on two new adventure novels for teenagers and young adults, one set in a fictional medieval realm and the other in New Guinea during the 1950s.