Dan Loxton - Expedition Member
Born (June 1974) and raised in Basingstoke (‘Amazing’stoke), Hampshire, England.
Schooled locally at Harriet Costello, where he was Deputy Head Boy (only because the headmaster was a Sport-Billy and that was his strength) and received 10 GCSE’s.
Attended 6th Form at Queen Mary’s College where he studied his A-Levels in Maths, Chemistry and French before taking a Gap Year prior to university.
Gap Year, where the boy became a man. Spent 4 months in the UK working to raise enough funds for the trip which then took him to Australia, working on tobacco farms and as a rescue diver on the Barrier Reef, to New Zealand and the Great Outdoors
Returned to the UK (under duress) and took up his place at University studying Sport and Exercise Science at Cheltenham College. During this time, being a keen tennis player, he took his tennis coaching qualifications and began to subsidize his college grant by coaching in the local schools and surrounding area. Upon finishing college (2:1) he continued to coach tennis and built a successful business Coaching and Personal training in Cheltenham and the local areas. This was the point where he also applied and got accepted to Gladiators but was only selected as a first reserve for the TV stages, his route to Celebrity thwarted at the first hurdle.
The Eureka moment, June 1999. Like Darby he too noticed the ‘exciting’ posters advertising the action packed life in the Armed Forces and so applied to join the Army. Within 3 months he was at the Royal Military Academy Sandhurst (RMAS) with his hair cropped short and and shoes so shiny you could see your reflection.
Graduated Royal Military Academy Sandhurst and went directly into the Army Air Corps (AAC) and started the Army Pilots Course. After 20 months he received his Army Wings and got posted to Northern Ireland flying Lynx MK7. During this time he was lucky enough to receive the AAC Stockwell Sword for the most promising young Officer, which led to a fantastic 2nd posting on exchange to the United States Army. Attached to the 1st Battalion, 101st Airborne Division (1-101), he took up his place as a Platoon Leader among the ‘Band of Brothers’, flying the AH-64D (Apache). A 2 year tour saw him move from ‘Apache Flight School’ in Fort Rucker, Alabama to a tour in Northern Iraq.
Returned to the UK and took up his least favourite posting, ‘flying a desk’ and so looked to other avenues to facilitate and further his flying career. This led to a transfer to the Royal Air Force (RAF) flying Search and Rescue (SAR) which is where he now finds himself now flying the Sea King MK3 out of RAF Valley, Wales working the mountains of Snowdonia and western seas and coastlines.
Dan has always been a keen sportsman, playing rugby and tennis to county level in his younger days and Army tennis in more recent years. His main activities these days are mountain biking, adventure racing and off-road triathlon, at which he recently represented Team GB in his age group (35-39) at the European Championships in Sardinia, Italy. He has always had a love of the mountains and is a keen skier, both downhill and ski touring. He has been lucky enough to have been recently introduced to the world of Alpine Mountaineering by way of the Army and had the opportunity to learn many new skills and put them to use climbing several 4000m peaks in the French Alps.
Dan’s reason for wanting to take part in the Everest 4 Heroes (E4H) expedition is to raise as much money as possible for a charity that is making a tangible and direct difference to the quality of life of injured Service Men and Women. By climbing this mountain Dan hopes that he can help raise enough money to enable Help 4 Heroes (H4H) to ease the path for my injured brethren on their route to recovery.
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