David Mackay
David Mackay
air aircraft area brought exciting lived lots lowly north
I was brought up in the north of Scotland, and where I lived was so lowly populated, it was used as a low-flying area by the Air Force, so lots of exciting aircraft used to fly over my village.
aircraft
In any aircraft you fly, you always think about what can go wrong, and you plan for it in advance. You always have back-up plans.
aircraft far flown
I've been lucky enough to have flown some very interesting aircraft in the past, but SpaceShipTwo is far and away the most exciting of them all.
air apollo black classroom decided flying force found huge join landing later men obviously people remember school sets test tv watch white
I can still remember them wheeling the black and white TV sets into our classroom at school so we could watch the men landing on the Moon, and that obviously had a huge impact. I later found out those people flying Apollo were ex-military test pilots, so I decided to join the Air Force and become a test pilot.
opportunity possible
I would say if you do have ambitions, don't just wait around. Go out and make yourself as well-qualified as possible so you can take that rare opportunity when it comes along.
fantastic saw
When I was 12, I saw the Apollo moon landings, and I thought that was really fantastic and exciting and thought, 'That's what I want to do.'
oral problem skills solving wider
Oral presentations could also be important, with the wider skills of problem solving and working with others.
exciting exploring landing looked watched
I watched the moon landing as a boy, and I thought that was the most exciting thing ever, going into space, orbiting Earth and exploring other planets. That looked fantastic.
chance military travel
I thought any chance I had of space travel would be military or government-controlled.
astronaut frustrated grew humans landing life living lots moon seemed space time
I was a frustrated astronaut all my life. I grew up at a time when space seemed to have no boundaries, and lots of us presumed humans would be living on the moon and landing on Mars.
age early fly
From a very early age, I wanted to fly aeroplanes.
amazing experience forward scots sending
For Virgin Galactic's customers, it is transportation to the most amazing experience of their lives. I very much look forward to sending some Scots into space.
above accepted commonly
We go up just into space - space is most commonly accepted to be 100 kilometres above the earth's surface, and we go up just beyond that to about 350,000 ft.
effect good hit medicare realize result sales
We know in the end this is not a good thing. Medicare Part D will have an effect on our sales and we're bracing for it and we realize we're going to take a hit as a result of this program.