Barry has been a lifelong aviation enthusiast since childhood.  He has had an extensive and varied flying career but is best known for his long participation in display flying. His experience covers the early largely unregulated days to the development of guidelines and regulations, both as a participant and working within the regulator.

He learned to glide with the ATC in 1954 and, as a founder member of the Fakenham Flying Group, gained his PPL in 1957.  He qualified as a flying instructor in 1960 and, along with examining and flying instructor course work, continued until health problems meant giving this up in 1999.  He was appointed a member of the Flying Instructor Examining panel in 1973 as the youngest and the first non-service pilot so honoured.  As CFI he ran aero clubs at Little Snoring, Peterborough and Leicester between 1960 and1984 training many hundreds of students to PPL and beyond. He gained a CPL in 1968 and an ATPL in 1984.  He has logged over 13,000 hours of which 8,000 were as an instructor. He has flown over 350 types and variants from the Sopwith Tabloid to the Jet Provost.

Barry was a founder member of Barnstormers Flying Circus which formed in 1963 and was led by Charles Boddington, and later Charles’ brother David. He also flew with the iconic Rothmans Aerobatic Team in the 1972 season. Barry has logged over 2,000 displays in mainly light aircraft such as the Tiger Moth and Pitts Special. As well as his flying skills, Barry also attached great importance in ensuring the public were thoroughly entertained by assuming characters and theatrical ground support as part of his displays.

From 1984 to 1998 he was employed by the Civil Aviation Authority regulating Private, Sporting and Recreational Aviation in all operational aspects and this included all UK civil run air displays.

Some 10 years ago he was appointed a Vice President of the Historic Aircraft Association (HAA) and it was with the HAA. that Barry worked to assist improvements in safety and sensible display regulation. For many years Barry provided a digest of global display flying incidents at the Annual Flying Forum ran by the HAA, based on excellent research of Colonel Des Barker. This was to ensure knowledge was passed onto experienced display pilots and those new to the discipline.

In recognition of his outstanding flying achievement in General Aviation, Barry Tempest is awarded the Myles Bickerton Trophy.

2014  The Blades

2015  Sqn Ldr Gary Coleman RAFR

2016  Maj Ryan D Chute USAF

2017  Donatella Ricci

2018  not awarded

2019  Captain Jeffrey Milsom BSc(Hons)

2020  not awarded

2021  John Stirk

2022  Steven Jones

2023  Alicia Nicole Hempleman-Adams

2024  not awarded

2025  Nigel Reid