David Mackay
David William Donald Mackay is a Scottish test pilot, former Royal Air Force officer, Virgin Galactic chief pilot, and commercial astronaut. He became the first native-born Scot to reach space.
- Born
- January 1, 1957
- Died
- N/A
- Birthplace
- Helmsdale, Sutherland,Scotland
Flights
3
Spacewalks
N/A
EVA time
N/A
In space
Three Virgin Galactic suborbital spaceflights
Bio
Mackay trained as a Royal Air Force pilot and test pilot, flying fast jets and later serving in flight-test roles. Before Virgin Galactic, he also flew for Virgin Atlantic, connecting conventional aviation, test flying, and commercial suborbital operations.
He piloted VSS Unity VF-01 in February 2019, the SpaceShipTwo flight that carried Beth Moses as cabin evaluator. He later piloted Unity 21 and Unity 22, helping move Virgin Galactic from test flights toward passenger operations.
Mackay's record is suborbital rather than orbital, but each flight is a separate spaceflight under the commercial astronaut framework. His record now lists the individual SpaceShipTwo flights with roles and mission context.