Display Pilot
Flight Lieutenant Bob Dewes
The 2024 RAF Tutor Display pilot is Flt Lt Bob Dewes. Bob is based at RAF Wittering where he is a Qualified flying instructor on 115 Sqn. He comes from Carmarthen in South Wales, where he was a member of 621 Squadron Air Training Corps.
Bob left school aged 16 and went on to become an electronics apprentice at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Aberporth. During this time, he was working with fast jets in the Cardigan ranges and was inspired to join the RAF as a pilot. Co-incidentally the original Top Gun Film was also released around this time. His first posting was to 10 Sqn where he flew the VC10 airliner, globally, in the air transport role and as an air-to-air refueling tanker on Operations over Iraq.
In 2000 Bob was posted to the University of Birmingham Air Squadron at RAF Cosford as a flying instructor and spent 3 years teaching university students to fly the Bulldog and Tutor training aircraft. He then chose to fly helicopters at RAF Shawbury and was posted to 22 Squadron, Search and Rescue Flight at Wattisham airfield in Suffolk flying the yellow Seaking helicopter. During the 10 years at Wattisham Bob was involved in many rescues and completed 6 detachments to the Falklands Islands where on his last shift he was part of the crew that rescued 174 passengers from a burning cruise ship.
Following the disbandment of the Search and Rescue Force Bob returned to the Tutor on 16 Sqn before becoming an Exam Wing instructor and then a Grob 120TP Prefect instructor at RAF Cranwell. He then returned to 115 Sqn in 2023 where he applied to be the Tutor Display Pilot. Having joined the RAF at the age of 19 Bob has had the chance to fly most of the RAF training aircraft and has about 19 different aircraft types and around 8500hrs in his logbook.
Display Manager
Flying Officer Isobel Woods
The 2024 Royal Air Force Tutor Display Manager is Flying Officer Isobel Woods. Isobel was born in West Sussex and joined the Royal Air Force in November 2021. She was a member of Bristol University Air Squadron (BUAS) while studying Natural Sciences at the University of Exeter. While on the UAS, Isobel took part in many Adventurous Training (AT) activities, including a high-altitude trekking expedition in Peru, offshore sailing with the RAF Sailing team and mountain biking.
Since joining the Royal Air Force, Isobel has completed Elementary Flying Training (EFT) on the Prefect T1 at RAF Cranwell, trained with the RAF ski team and spent 6 months learning Italian. She is looking forward to starting Basic Rotary Training at RAF Shawbury at the end of this year. In her free time, Isobel enjoys running, playing squash and cooking.
