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Andy green rrr:1 Articles 15/9/08 12:53 Page 16 BBritiritishsh engineeengineerriing,ng, BBritiritishsh tetechchnnoolology,gy, BBritiritishsh talenttalent The fastest man on earth, Andy Green, talks to Pat Malone about flying, driving and going supersonic without leaving the ground ndy Green hasn’t gone through the is currently flying a desk in Whitehall) he that holds the land speed record’. He’s tall for sound barrier often enough to be blasé dabbles in helicopters, he glides and flies the a fighter pilot, extremely fit – he rowed in an Aabout it, but he is no stranger to the tug, he takes friends for jollies in a PA28, he Oxford scratch crew – and sufficiently good- phenomenon. It was part of daily life when he skydives – more than 200 jumps – and he looking to have been offered a lucrative was flying Phantoms out of Wildenrath, flies a Pitts Special at Sibson. He’s working on contract modelling menswear. (He turned it planning Mach 1.4 intercepts on targets 70 his display authorisation, and he’ll get it, too, down.) He has a beautiful and intelligent wife, miles away, and Mach 2 sorties were not because when Andy Green sets himself a and his progress through the ranks of the RAF unknown when he moved on to the Tornado. target he will not rest until it is achieved, and looks like a textbook career curve. Makes you He even managed to squeeze a sonic boom spectacularly well. When he went for a degree, sick, doesn’t it! Even before you take into out of a Hawk in a power dive, although it was it had to be First Class Honours in account the fact that he has the analytical hard work. But he remains the only man ever mathematics from Oxford. When he did the skills, the motor functions, the sheer to have driven faster than sound in a motor Cresta Run, he became captain of the RAF fathomless moxie to drive a car through the car, something he has done not once but five team and fastest serviceman ever on the ice. sound barrier, you have to admit he’s a man times, for the avoidance of doubt. When he learned to sail he quickly became a apart. But the fastest man on earth is at his yachtmaster, and will be an instructor. And But there’s hope for us ordinary mortals happiest leaving it; he will fly anything his there’s more. He is personable and effortlessly because to hear Andy Green tell it, it doesn’t finely-honed appreciation of risk tells him he self-effacing; the ultimate team player, he’s come easy. He was never a ‘natural’ pilot and can fairly safely tackle. Aside from the day-job always buried in the crowd in the photographs came within an ace of washing out because of on fast jets (although Wing Commander Green and refers to himself as ‘the driver for the team poor tactical air combat skills. He was one of 16 General Aviation October 2008 Andy green rrr:1 Articles 15/9/08 12:53 Page 17 Wing Commander Green with the JCB Dieselmax in which he broke the diesel-powered land speed record the worst Cresta Run beginners they’d ever he climbed the much bloody hard work had gone into it.” had. What makes him exceptional is not his fireman’s career Andy’s career path was laid out for him innate talents, but the mental discipline that pole and Andy when he went to the town show in Hartlepool, applies those talents, the effort of will and the was born in where the RAF was showing a Nimrod indomitable determination to achieve, properly, Atherstone, simulator. “This was in the late 1970s, Cold correctly, perfectly. Most of us simply don’t Warwickshire. “I was War time, and it was all very hands-on and a have the candlepower for the task, but we born in a Fire Service huge intellectual challenge,” he says. “It could all be better pilots if we stretched home overlooking a fire seemed like something worthwhile, exciting ourselves intellectually and refused to accept station, and of course I and challenging. The more I looked into it, the that ‘good enough’ would do. wanted to be a fireman more I thought I should be flying an aircraft.” There was a vague a whiff of aviation in when I grew up,” he Oddly enough, flying itself wasn’t the be-all Andy Green’s family history. His father, Tony, says. “But dad was and end-all. “At my selection they asked what got into the RAF for the second half of World cautious… He was made me think I’d like flying, and I said I War Two, as a second pilot-engineer on equivocal about my didn’t know for sure, but I had every Halifaxes. He’d come top of his air engineers’ education; my state school confidence that I would. I was not a natural course, but when he was demobbed, like so pushed me hard to aim for a pilot, but had the intellectual discipline to work many wartime pilots he became a labourer, a degree, but dad wondered whether it was at it. taxi driver and a chauffeur before joining the necessary. Even after I’d got a First at Oxford I “I had two letters within a week at the start Fire Service. He moved around the country as don’t think my parents fully grasped how of 1980, one from the RAF offering me a pilot General Aviation October 2008 17 Andy green rrr:1 Articles 15/9/08 12:53 Page 18 cadetship, and the other from Oxford. I was Aircraft Shelter) doors, which start to open aircraft. The Royal Navy was also putting sponsored through university by the RAF and when the hooter goes off, through the gap, through a lot of extra guys as we moved to the flew Bulldogs twice a week with the Air throw on the lifejacket, helmet on, run up the joint course Harrier concept – all of which Squadron. After I graduated I learned more steps, jump into the aircraft, plug in the PEC meant we had half as many aircraft as we about how to learn in a year at Cranwell and (Personal Equipment Connector) that connects needed and twice as many students as we six months at Valley on Hawks. And the you to the comms and call ‘Mike Lima 42, could comfortably cope with. Arriving in the emotional engagement with flying grew. I got a Battle Stations’. And the elapsed time was 15 middle of that and saying, ‘Can I have some PPL at Mona flying a PA28, and it was nice to seconds. To me, it seemed like about a flying please’ was not really a fair request. So I be able to take friends flying, but I was totally minute. I was the first to check in, and we got just about enough to keep in touch – about and narrowly focussed on fast jets. were airborne before the other squadron.” ten hours in all. The day I was going to go solo “I wanted to fly the F4, and I worked very Of course it was just an exercise… but is the weather was rubbish and the opportunity hard at it and learned to fly it well – well everything a competition? Doesn’t tackling life didn’t arise again. It was very frustrating, enough, in fact, to mask my deficiencies in on such terms lead to frustration and watching other guys go out every day… tactical air combat. They probably should dissatisfaction? “I accept that I’m a serial over- “A certain amount of Harrier flying can be never have graduated me from the OCU. achiever,” Andy says. “I set myself high targets mimicked by the helicopter – fixed-power, Eventually I was found out, and I was sent and work hard to attain them. It’s very difficult variable pitch versus fixed pitch, variable back to Coningsby for a week-long ‘pass or fail’ to be satisfied with just being adequate, but I power – but there are obvious limits. I went to on tactical weapons. I was staring defeat in the don’t live life in a constant state of frustration. I RAF Shawbury for five hours on Squirrel face. I thought it was the end of my RAF set high standards in specific areas – such as helicopters, which is the best flying course in career – very nerve-racking. the job I do – and I will always be slightly the RAF. You don’t need to learn the systems, “At Coningsby I had a couple of really good, disappointed because I know I can do better. you don’t need to know any of the checks, really understanding instructors. The first day But I wouldn’t want to do everything in life like you’re not going to go solo. A man goes out to was learning to handle the aircraft on the that.” your aircraft, starts it up and says right, ready ragged edge of control, then four days of If you were mapping out a career path for you now, sir. gradually building up the combat manoeuvres towards high office in the RAF the first portion “Harrier pilots do work incredibly hard. I – pure one-v-one handling combat twice a day should look like Andy Green’s CV. “I spent two hate to say that for the record, because Harrier for a week. I did all the study, talked to the years on the ground at Northwood, completely pilots are the first people to tell you how great people, I put so much effort into trying to get outside of my aviation specialisation, they are.

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