Ray Mears tests his own courage as he takes part in the RAF’s three-week survival course in Cornwall. He joins a team of 20 jet pilots, navigators and helicopter crew as they learn to survive at sea and on land.

RAF aircrew can find themselves in action almost anywhere in the world, flying over desert, sea, jungle, woodland or the Arctic. If they are shot down behind enemy lines, they have to be able to survive in every environment. “In a few seconds, a fighter pilot can be catapulted from their jet worth millions of pounds into a Stone Age situation where they’re surviving hand to mouth,” says Ray.

From learning to survive on water, the course moves to Dartmoor where Ray spends a week living rough in shelters, learning how to trap squirrels and birds, light fires and cook what he catches. It’s wet and cold. When they go on the run for three days and nights, a hunter force is let loose to capture them.

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Ray Mears (born 1964) is a British author and TV presenter on the subject of bushcraft and survival techniques. He grew up in Southern England, and started tracking foxes at a young age. It was his Judo teacher who gave him the idea to learn Survival skills. He has been teaching survival skills since 1983, when he founded the “Woodlore” School of Wilderness Bushcraft. His Outdoor Survival Handbook was published in 1990, and his first TV appearance was in 1993 in the BBC2 series Tracks.

His presentation style is often praised as authoritative but relaxed and friendly. His love of his subject and his sense of communion with nature are evident in his programmes, as is his respect for indigenous cultures. He has developed something of a cult following amongst students in the United Kingdom.

Ray Mears has become synonymous with survival and wilderness bushcraft through his television series Tracks, World of Survival, The Essential Guide to Rocks, and Extreme Survival. He spent his life leaning these skills and is a master of the subject.

Wanting to be able to sleep out on the trail and unable to afford camping equipment, he resorted to a Robinson Crusoe approach to solving the problem.

Digesting every scrap of information relating to survival that he could find in his local library, he soon began to re-learn skills that had not been employed on the North Downs for hundreds of years.

Since those early days Ray has expanded his horizons by travelling the world. He has won the friendship of many nations and been privileged to accompany many tribes while hunting, tracking and searching for wild plants and medicine.

In his early twenties Ray founded his company Woodlore, through which he trains both military and civilian audiences the skills of survival.

Duration : 0:6:43

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