David William Donald Mackay (born 1957) is the Chief Pilot of

Virgin Galactic Virgin Galactic is an American spaceflight company founded by Richard Branson and his British Virgin Group retains an 11.9% stake through Virgin Investments Limited. It is headquartered in California, and operates from New Mexico. The company i ...

, a

commercial astronaut A commercial astronaut is a person who has commanded, piloted, or served as an active crew member of a privately funded spacecraft. This is distinct from an otherwise non-government astronaut, for example Charlie Walker, who flies while represe ...

and a former RAF

test pilot A test pilot is an aircraft pilot with additional training to fly and evaluate experimental, newly produced and modified aircraft with specific maneuvers, known as flight test techniques.Stinton, Darrol. ''Flying Qualities and Flight Testing ...

. He is the first native-born

Scot The Scots ( sco, Scots Fowk; gd, Albannaich) are an ethnic group and nation native to Scotland. Historically, they emerged in the early Middle Ages from an amalgamation of two Celtic-speaking peoples, the Picts and Gaels, who founded t ...

to visit space.

Early life

David Mackay was born in Scotland, and lived in

Helmsdale Helmsdale ( sco, Helmsdal, gd, Bun Ilidh) is a village on the east coast of Sutherland, in the Highland (council area), Highland council area of Scotland. The modern village was planned in 1814 to resettle communities that had been removed from ...

Highland Highlands or uplands are areas of high elevation such as a mountainous region, elevated mountainous plateau or high hills. Generally speaking, upland (or uplands) refers to ranges of hills, typically from up to while highland (or highlands) is ...

. David's father was a police officer. He would see aircraft flying (low) from

RAF Lossiemouth Royal Air Force Lossiemouth or more commonly RAF Lossiemouth is a military airfield located on the western edge of the town of Lossiemouth in Moray, north-east Scotland. Lossiemouth is one of the largest and busiest fast-jet stations in the ...

. David studied Aeronautical Engineering at the

University of Glasgow , image = UofG Coat of Arms.png , image_size = 150px , caption = Coat of arms Flag , latin_name = Universitas Glasguensis , motto = la, Via, Veritas, Vita , ...

. He first piloted an aircraft in 1977.

Career

Royal Air Force

He joined the RAF in 1979. He flew the Harrier GR3 in

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwe ...

and the Falklands.

Test pilot

In 1986 he was selected for test pilot training. In 1988 he graduated from the French test pilots' school,

École du personnel navigant d'essais et de réception EPNER (''École du personnel navigant d’essais et de réception'') is the French test pilot school, based on the Istres Le Tube Airbase, France. One of the five main test pilot schools in the western hemisphere, EPNER maintains close links with ...

- EPNER, through an exchange with the RAF's

Empire Test Pilots' School The Empire Test Pilots' School (ETPS) is a British training school for test pilots and flight test engineers of fixed-wing and rotary-wing aircraft at MoD Boscombe Down in Wiltshire, England. It was established in 1943, the first of its type. T ...

. He became Commanding Officer of the RAF's Fast Jet Test Flight in 1992 at

RAF Boscombe Down MoD Boscombe Down ' is the home of a military aircraft testing site, on the southeastern outskirts of the town of Amesbury, Wiltshire, England. The site is managed by QinetiQ, the private defence company created as part of the breakup of the Def ...

. The fastest speed he reached was Mach 1.4 in a French Mirage. He conducted trials on the Harrier GR7, the Sea Harrier FA.2, and the Tucano. He flew with the Fixed Wing Test Squadron. He was awarded the Air Force Cross in 1992.

Virgin Atlantic

He joined Virgin Atlantic in 1995, flying Boeing 747s as a Captain from 1999; he also flew the

Airbus A340 The Airbus A340 is a long-range, wide-body passenger airliner that was developed and produced by Airbus. In the mid-1970s, Airbus conceived several derivatives of the A300, its first airliner, and developed the A340 quadjet in parallel with ...

from 2002. He finished his flying career with over 11,000 hours flying.

Virgin Galactic

White Knight Two and SpaceShipTwo from directly below

He joined Virgin Galactic in 2009, and is now the Chief Pilot. The suborbital spacecraft,

SpaceShipTwo The Scaled Composites Model 339 SpaceShipTwo (SS2) is an air-launched suborbital spaceplane type designed for space tourism. It is manufactured by The Spaceship Company, a California-based company owned by Virgin Galactic. SpaceShipTwo is car ...

(SS2), will reach a height of 360,000 feet. On its journey into space, the SS2 spacecraft will reach Mach 3.5. The first SS2 spacecraft to fly, of which he was one of the pilots, was the ''

VSS Enterprise VSS ''Enterprise'' ( tail number: N339SS) was the first SpaceShipTwo (SS2) spaceplane, built by Scaled Composites for Virgin Galactic. As of 2004, it was planned to be the first of five commercial suborbital SS2 spacecraft planned by Virgin ...

''; the second SS2 spacecraft is called ''

VSS Unity VSS ''Unity'' (Virgin Space Ship Unity, Registration: N202VG), previously referred to as VSS ''Voyager'', is a SpaceShipTwo-class suborbital rocket-powered crewed spaceplane. It is the second ''SpaceShipTwo'' to be built and is part of the V ...

''. On 22 February 2019 Mackay became the 569th person, and first

, to visit space. He piloted the VSS ''Unity'' VF-01 flight above , qualifying him as an

FAA The Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is the largest transportation agency of the U.S. government and regulates all aspects of civil aviation in the country as well as over surrounding international waters. Its powers include air traffic m ...

. He has since piloted the Unity 21 and

Unity 22 Virgin Galactic Unity 22 was a sub-orbital spaceflight of the SpaceShipTwo-class VSS ''Unity'' which launched on 11 July 2021. The crew consisted of pilots David Mackay and Michael Masucci as well as passengers Sirisha Bandla, Colin Bennet ...

flights, also above .

References

External links

BBC July 2011

Audio clips

West FM 96.7 in July 2012

2009 interview
with Flightglobal.com

Video clips

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Mackay, David 1957 births Alumni of the University of Glasgow Scottish test pilots People from Helmsdale People from Salisbury People from Sutherland Recipients of the Air Force Cross (United Kingdom) Royal Air Force officers Scottish aviators Virgin Galactic Living people Commercial astronauts People who have flown in suborbital spaceflight American test pilots