He returned to the UK to fly the FAA's Hawker Sea Hawk, one of Britain's first naval jet fighters.

Seconded to the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) Fleet Air Arm for two years from June 1956, he flew the Fairey Firefly and Hawker Sea Fury from RANAS Nowra (HMAS Albatross), New South Wales, leaving Australia in March 1958.

Afterwards he returned to the Fleet Air Arm, leading the Buccaneer Aeros five-plane display team.

In January 1983 he became Director of Flight Operations, succeeding Paul Millett, the first British person to fly the Tornado in 1974 at Manching.

[7] He piloted the British Aerospace EAP, fore-runner of the Typhoon (ZF534) on its first flight on 8 August 1986, exceeding Mach 1.

Having reached the military test pilot age limit of 50, he became Deputy Managing Director of Panavia Aircraft GmbH in 1987.

He retired from Panavia in 1993 but later returned to Germany in 1996 for a year to assist the Flight Test Department of DASA (became EADS in 2000) with their Eurofighter programme at Manching.