RICH PERKINS
LT COL, USAF (RET)
FIRECAT PILOT

Rich holds the highest aviation ratings in both the military and civilian worlds: US Air Force Command Pilot wings and the Airline Transport Pilot license for both land-based and seaplanes.  He has over 10,000 hours of flying time in over 100 different aircraft, and he is equally at home soaring serenely somewhere in the stratosphere or upside down fifty feet off the ground at five hundred knots. 

Graduating from Mississippi State University with a degree in Aerospace Engineering, Rich volunteered for the military at a time when others were actively trying to avoid military service.  He graduated at the top of his Air Force pilot training class, with a fighter qualification, when half the students didn’t even make it through the training.  Despite his hard won fighter qual, Rich’s first assignment was the C-130 Hercules, a large four engine tactical transport aircraft.  Still totally a Type A guy, he beat all the training timelines, got checked out in some really interesting aerial delivery techniques and hit the tactical airlift circuit well ahead of his peers, flying tactical missions all over the world.  He became one of the youngest C-130 pilots ever awarded the title of Aircraft Commander. 

To build high performance jet time and get back on the fighter track, Rich volunteered to be an instructor pilot in the supersonic T-38 Talon.  As usual, he was top of the class in Instructor Pilot training, Academic instructor training, Squadron Officer School, Air Command and Staff College, and every other course of training he tackled.  He was “Proficiency Advanced” in every level of training and excelled teaching fledgling pilots to master supersonic jets.  As the youngest Chief of Academics in Air Training Command, he received numerous “Top Performer” awards and over a dozen “Best Instructor” and “Best Academic Instructor” awards.  He helped manage and train over 1000 Air Force pilots, including a number of the first women pilots ever admitted to the ranks of the Air Force flying corps.

Actively recruited for a headquarters tour at Randolph AFB, TX, Rich became Air Training Command’s expert on flight training and drafted the flying training and academic syllabi still in use today in Air Force Undergraduate Flying Training.  He created academic courseware and instructional audiovisuals.  He authored three textbooks and five instructor guides; and co-authored others.  He introduced computer assisted instruction to Air Force pilot training.  In short, Rich has helped to mold every single pilot graduated by the U.S. Air Force in the past 25+ years!

And while he was doing all that he flew a full schedule in T-38’s, teaching pilots to be instructors, sort of a graduate level “Instructor Pilot’s Instructor Pilot.”

Though Rich was honored with selection by Air Training Command to be a Career Trainer, he turned down this most comfortable of positions, and instead volunteered for one of the most dangerous peacetime assignments possible: the U-2 spy plane.  The U-2 is notoriously difficult to fly, and operates in a near space environment, gathering intelligence all over the world.  The Bad Guys don’t like spies, and the U-2 pilot does the same job—with the same risks—whether there is a war on or not.  For that reason nobody ever gets assigned to the U-2.  It is one of the few all volunteer flying units in the world.

Later, as a Battle Staff Officer at Strategic Air Command Headquarters (Think “Dr. Strangelove”), Rich helped run U-2 operations world wide before and during the Gulf War.  He set up classified missions all over the world for all sorts of government agencies, CIA, DEA, NRO and all the other agencies you read about in Tom Clancy novels.  When the Air Force reorganized, Rich found himself at the head of U-2 Operations.  When the Strategic Recon Center closed down, Rich found himself a new job.

He volunteered to become the Air Force Liaison to NASA on the west coast.  His aerospace engineering degree and the two Masters Degrees he had picked up along the way, plus his operational experience made him ideal for the position.  Rich was also accorded the title of Director at NASA Ames Research Center.  He ran liaison offices at Ames and also at Dryden Flight Research Center, Edwards AFB, CA, coordinating Air Force and NASA assets to everyone’s benefit.  Oh, he also got to fly NASA airplanes.

Rich retired from the Air Force in 2003 and moved on to civilian life—well, as civilian as Rich is likely to ever get--but he didn’t leave flying behind.

Flashback: Years ago, about an hour after getting his Private Pilot license, Rich rented a little Cessna 150 Aerobat and proceeded to teach himself aerobatics.  While recovering from a totally unrecognizable roll and the ensuing high speed dive, Rich realized that there was more to this acro stuff than met his young eye.  Though he survived that experience, he never forgot the lesson.

So, before he even retired from the Air Force, he began Attitude Aviation in 1997 with partner Marilyn Bedford to teach performance flying and aerobatics.  Now he owns the largest, most unique fun flying school in the U.S., specializing in tailwheel aircraft, aerobatics, aerial tours, air combat, formation, warbirds, et al.

As if that wasn't enough fun, Rich also flies air shows in a unique Aerovodochody L-39 known world wide as the Firecat.  He recently added a Siai Marchetti SF260 to his air show stable.  Not new to Soviet aircraft, Rich has flown advanced aerobatics in his own Yak 55M, instructs in Yak 52’s and L-39’s, and is one of only a dozen or so pilots in the US qualified in the Yak 54.  Rich flies every airplane at Attitude Aviation--from Cub to Pitts to Jet--and he flies them superbly.  It's the way he lives his life.



Still curious? Check out Rich’s professional resume.  Click here

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