Royal Air Force He joined the RAF in 1979. He flew the
Harrier GR3 in
Germany 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, through an exchange with the RAF's
Empire Test Pilots' School. He became Commanding Officer of the RAF's
Fast Jet Test Flight in 1992 at
RAF Boscombe Down. 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 from 2002. He finished his flying career with over 11,000 hours flying.
Virgin Galactic He joined Virgin Galactic in 2009, and is now the Chief Pilot. The suborbital spacecraft,
SpaceShipTwo (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; the second SS2 spacecraft is called
VSS Unity. On 22 February 2019 Mackay became the 569th person, and first
Scot, to visit space. He piloted the
VSS Unity VF-01 flight above , qualifying him as an
FAA commercial astronaut. He has since piloted the
Unity 21 and
Unity 22 flights, also above . ==References==