When Virgin Galactics first commercial flight accelerates to space carrying Richard Branson, the billionaire owner of the company, and his family, David Mackay is likely to be at the controls.

Mackay, 57, is the chief pilot of the worlds first airline to space, and company officials are increasingly confident that the inaugural flight will lift off from Spaceport America near Truth or Consequences, N.M., this year. More than 700 people have bought flight tickets, which now sell for $250,000 each.

It looks like everything is coming together, said Mackay, in a mellow Scottish brogue.

Mackay is a fitting aviator for a new era of space travel. He has flown some of the oldest and slowest planes, including a 1909 Blriot, the type that made the first flight across the English Channel. Hes also flown 747s and British Harrier jets. With Virgin Galactic, he will be going much faster and higher.

Growing up in Scotland in the 1960s, Mackay was captivated by NASAs push to put astronauts on the moon. Royal Air Force jets regularly roared above Helmsdale, the village on the east coast of Scotland where he lived, training to fly low over hilly terrain. When he learned that NASAs astronauts were mostly former military test pilots, Mackay plotted a career path: He would fly Royal Air Force fighter jets, become a test pilot and then an astronaut to go to the moon and Mars.

That Britain did not have a space program did not deter him.

In the navet of youth, I didnt know that, he said. I thought by the time I was in my 20s or early 30s, this was something that would be routine.

Mackay did join the RAF and become a test pilot. But NASA astronauts stopped going to the moon after 1972, and Mackay could not follow in their footsteps. When he reached his mid-30s, he, like most test pilots, moved to a managerial position behind a desk, which was not where he wanted to be.

He left the RAF in 1995 and became a pilot for Virgin Atlantic, the British airline founded by Branson a job that offered unexpected career opportunities.

Virgin sponsored the successful effort by the billionaire and adventurer Steve Fossett to become the first person to fly solo and nonstop around the world without refueling. Mackay traveled to Mojave, Calif., in 2004 to meet with Burt Rutan, the designer of Fossetts airplane, the GlobalFlyer, and to review the technical documentation. (Fossett died in a plane crash in California in 2007.)

Original post:

Virgin Galactic chief pilot ready to fly 1st paying customers to space