The RIO was Graham Higgins, a young kid, who trusted Bates instead of departing the airplane. He was like 27-28, right out of the RAG.
I gather you fly (flew?) the 14? I have always been in awe of what combat pilots can do with the machines they command. I remember I enjoyed a really dumb ass scifi time travel movie, The Final Countdown, simply because they used a real F14 squadron to do their flying. There was one amazing scene of an encounter between a pair of F14s and a pair of Zeros (don't ask). The work those pilots had to (apparently) go through to work against such incredibly slow aircraft was amazing.
Did you know the RIO in question? God rest both of them.