This month we meet Professor Guy Gratton whose career in aviation is probably one of the most extensive we have featured in this series of interviews.
When did your interest in aviation begin?
Apparently when I was in a pushchair, my parents took me to the airshow at RAF Leuchars. I slept through the whole thing then, when the jet noise stopped, I woke up and started crying. Family legend implies this set the pattern for my whole life.
Did your parents encourage this interest? Did you have any relatives who flew?
Absolutely. I’m the first pilot in my family, but a third-generation engineer. My Dad, who benignly indoctrinated me at an early age with Biggles books, had started his own career as an aircraft designer at Vickers Armstrong, building then designing parts of the Supermarine Attacker and Scimitar. I think that my parents would probably have supported me in anything I did that was constructive and worthwhile, but they seem to have been particularly proud of my choice of career.
Which A levels did you complete?
Maths, Further Maths, Physics, Chemistry, and General Studies. The advice I’d give anybody trying to follow any faintly similar career path to me today is to do Maths, Physics, and then stuff that you enjoy, whatever that is. And of-course, learn to fly something as early as possible.
Where did you do your first degree and in what subject?
Aeronautics and Astronautics, at the University of Southampton. I also went back there part-time for my PhD later.
Where and when did you complete your PPL?
I did my first, a microlight PPL at the Shadow Flight Centre at Old Sarum in 1993, then in 2001 got a “Group A” PPL with Britannia Flight Training in Florida.
You also qualified as a CRI and more recently as an FI on single engined aircraft. Where did you complete those courses, and do you feel they prepared you well as an instructor?
I did my CRI with The Pilot Centre at Denham, and then my FI with Stars Fly at Elstree. I was very happy with both courses, but I’d go further and say that the flying instructing qualifications I obtained taught me more about the basics of how to teach than pretty much any other teaching course I’ve done, and I use that daily in my university work. I regularly recommend standard flying instructing texts in the University environment, as in my experience the flying community takes the quality of instruction more seriously than any other.
Please describe your career/life to date up to and including your present position.
I grew up fascinated by technology, particularly space, with a flavour of aviation. My childhood was spent reading science fiction, but also Biggles books. That led to my leaving school at 18 to be a Student Engineer at what was then the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough. From there I went on to do a Bachelor of Engineering degree, sponsored by the Ministry of Defence; at University I also started learning to fly with the University Air Squadron. As a young engineer, the MoD really wanted me to go and work in a headquarters building in Whitehall – my idea of hell – but I also had the flexibility to apply for jobs anywhere in the organisation. That led to me going into my dream first job, as a Trials Officer (what the rest of the world calls a Flight Test Engineer, or FTE) at Boscombe Down. There I learned a lot about the profession of flight test, including some amazing training at the Empire Test Pilots’ School, where I logged time as observer in a bunch of types from the Hercules to the Jaguar.
By 1997 however, I had fallen out of love with that place as an employer. I’d been moved into a ground job that I was good at, running the Environmental Test Facilities, but with no flying (although I did get to run ground tests on the Saab Grippen fighter and EH101 helicopter, so it wasn’t without its interests). By that point I had a microlight PPL, which I got at Old Sarum in a CFM Shadow, and was flying a Spectrum T1 out of RAF Halton for fun. So, that made me very interested when the job came up as Chief Technical Officer at the British Microlight Aircraft Association. Thus, I jumped ship.
At BMAA I was in a tough job, and a hellishly fun one. Amongst other things I got the whole amateur construction programme in microlighting going, negotiated convergence with the higher European 450kg microlight definition, and approved about a dozen aircraft types. I became qualified as a test pilot through the CAA, and for a “hobby”, but actually closely connected to the job, I obtained a PhD in the design of flight test techniques. I stuck there until 2005 when I became a victim of my own success – instead of spending large chunks of my time out of the office helping people with their engineering projects, I was increasingly shackled to a desk in Deddington, which was far less fun.
So, I resigned and went to Brunel University London, where they were launching a new degree in Aviation Engineering. As the aviation subject matter expert, I got to design the syllabus, work out how we were going to deliver it, and negotiate flying training provisions with Cabair, and later Wycombe Air Centre. I also met, and married, Petra Godwin, who was teaching in the same department. I realised then that I also needed to keep upping my game as a pilot, so I started the ground study for my CPL. I also was given media training, and initially through the Science Media Centre, started being a media commentator on aviation stories. I was very content to stay there and climb the academic career ladder but was head-hunted and made an offer I couldn’t refuse, to head the Facility for Airborne Atmospheric Measurements, based at Cranfield.
At FAAM I was in another tough but rewarding job – we were operating the BAe 146-301 Atmospheric Research Aircraft and taking it all around the world delivering packages of data for UK science. I had people working for me with multiple employers and terms and conditions, and I had to speak fluent scientist, fluent pilot, and fluent engineer – often in the same meeting. I took advantage of my location to use a couple of mornings a week to get my CPL finished off with Bonus Aviation. The same year I finished that, 2010, I did my IMC Rating with Billins Air Services, and got my first instructor’s rating, a CRI, at Denham which led to me instructing part time at Billins.
I did eleven years in total at FAAM, six of them as Head of Facility, then another five as Head of Airborne Science at the parent National Centre for Atmospheric Science. I delivered science in India, Switzerland, Scotland, Canada, Chile, and many other places. Working with our sister organisation, the Airborne Research and Surveying Facility, or ARSF and their brilliant Chief Pilot, Carl Joseph, I was also mission scientist on the first flights into the volcanic ash cloud in 2014.
In 2019 though, NCAS’ parent body, UK Research and Innovation, decided they needed to reduce headcount, and that included no longer needing a Head of Airborne Science. So, I was made redundant – albeit pretty generously. I decided that what I would do after that was start a consultancy as part of a portfolio career, so took a chunk of the redundancy money off to Crystal Aero Group to do my FAA CPL/IR, intending to use that as part of that consultancy.
It was a great idea, but by the time I’d finished my FAA certificates, Professor Sir Iain Gray, then the Director of Aerospace at Cranfield University, had made me an offer I couldn’t refuse. So, a few months after finishing with FAAM at Cranfield, I moved back to an office a few hundred yards away as an internal consultant helping to set up the new national Aerospace Research Consortium, or ARC. That led to my moving to a new permanent role at Cranfield as Associate Professor of Aviation and the Environment, and finally in 2025 to my being promoted to the Professor of Aircraft Test and Evaluation – a role that is pretty much unique in the Europe. Recent flight test programmes there have included the all-electric Sherwood eKub, and a Bristell NG5 that we had to solve some serious stalling issues with.
Since working for the University, I’ve also been instructing at weekends, either within the three syndicates that I belong to at White Waltham – on a PA28, a Bo209, and an Aeronca Chief, or on PA28s with Azure Flight Training Centre at Cranfield Airport. Whilst I basically only do evenings and Sundays at Azure, I’m also now the Head of Training.
You chose an academic route rather than employment as a pilot, either Airforce or civilian. Why was this? Do you regret that decision?
I actually have never seen this as an either/or. I love aviation, I love research, I am fascinated by engineering, I take massive joy in being a pilot. So, I’ve found career directions that allow me to do all of these things.
This mindset started in two places. As a teenager, what I really wanted to be was an astronaut, and until I finally was able to apply in 2020, every career decision was made with that in mind. It took the European Space Agency 9 months to reject me, so I hopefully wasn’t that bad.
Also, when I was a student engineer with the MoD, I managed to wangle a short placement in the flight test department at Westland Helicopters. I saw engineering graduates coming to work, dressed in a flight suit, and daily deliver helicopter flight tests. Just how exciting that was, blew me away, and made me decide that I was going to try and spend my life in the overlap between engineering and flying. So far, that has worked out pretty well.
Incidentally, one of those engineering graduates I shared an office within Yeovil, is now President of the Royal Aeronautical Society, Dr Alisdair Wood.
There are many revered experts in your field. Did you have one that you particularly admired and why?
I’m going to pick two. The first is Darrol Stinton, who designed aircraft at Blackburn Aircraft, before joining the RAF and eventually becoming a Test Pilot. His three books sit behind my desk and I consult them regularly.
The second was Professor Heinz Wolff, who invented the field of bioengineering, led the project that put Helen Sharman, Britain’s first astronaut, into space. It was a conversation with him, when I was 16, that persuaded me to study an aerospace engineering subject at university – and everything else pretty much led from there.
You mention that a big disappointment was failing to pass the ETPS course? Why do you think this was and do you feel you would pass it now with the knowledge you have since gained?
It was, I had been trying for years to get onto that course and put every ounce of effort I had into passing it. I think that there was an element of certain people at Boscombe Down deciding that my face didn’t fit, and also that I was working alongside possibly the best student on the course (who, incidentally, is still a friend) and our instructors tended to compare us. Maybe at 26 I was also just a bit too young and inexperienced to start a course like that. I never failed a flight, or an exam – they failed me on report writing, 9 months into the 12 months course. I later passed a PhD in flight test technique design, and am now a Professor of the subject, and building an MSc in flight test engineering. I’ve won awards from the Society of Experimental Test Pilots, the Royal Aeronautical Society, and the Institution of Mechanical Engineers for papers I’ve written on flight testing. One of my ex-PhD students ended up ETPS’ external academic examiner, and the RAF have since sent a working ETPS graduate test pilot to me to do his own PhD. Feel free to judge me on that track record!
I’ve moved on – but I won’t deny that it upset me badly, as did the fact of several people for years afterwards holding the fact that I failed that course against me, and putting obstacles in my way because of that.
You mention winning some awards, are there any you’re particularly proud of?
Yes. Last year, I was awarded the Jesualdo Martinez Award by the European Chapter of the Society of Flight Test Engineers, named after a colleague who died in a tragic A400M flight test accident in 2015. The award, a replica of a painting called “Empty Desk” sits on my own desk and reminds me every day of the vital importance of safety in everything we do professionally.
Much earlier in my career, with my PhD supervisor Dr Simon Newman, I won several awards for my research into the tumble mode in flexwing microlights, which I know is now an integral part of the microlight syllabus. You can see the drop-off in fatalities after that work, so it definitely saved lives – much more important than any award, but I’m very happy to have those awards as a reminder.
You have nonetheless qualified as a light aircraft test pilot. What does this actually mean? Which aircraft are you technically permitted to assess?
A test pilot is another type of pilot, and we have our own skills and professional norms. It would be arrogant to say that being a test pilot would make me a better airline pilot (a job I’ve never done) for example. I do think that it helps to make me a good instructor, as I’m very attuned to exactly where the edges of the flight envelope, and the risks, or not, with being there and that can help with many aspects of flight instruction.
What is a test pilot then? Yes, you need to be a reasonably good pilot, who has the ability to fly safely and accurately. More than that though, what really matters is your technical knowledge, your team working skills and that you have enough spare capacity to fly an aeroplane well, whilst performing and reporting experiments throughout the flight. That is undeniably quite a different task to most piloting missions.
There is a lot of additional knowledge we need to do this job, including planning and reporting, and a bunch of specialist manoeuvres. It however absolutely isn’t true that a TP can just jump into an aeroplane and magically assess it – even just a one-hour test flight can often need days or weeks of planning, and multiple hours of report writing. That’s even more the case if you’ve not flown the type before, or it’s the first flight of a new aeroplane.
There is a part FCL test pilot qualification, which exists at four levels. I don’t actually have, or need that, as it’s only required to command flight test aircraft over 2 tonnes. Maybe at some point I’ll try and obtain it, as there are things I’d like to do with that, but in reality, my work has either been flying as a Test Pilot of smaller aeroplanes, or as a Flight Test Engineer on larger ones.
Have you had any concerning moments in your aviation career?
Yes. Details in my memoirs when I’m safely retired.
People often regret things they have not achieved. Do you have any aviation regrets?
I regret not trying harder to rejoin the reserves in my 20s and 30s and serve in uniform longer, but the reality at the time was that there weren’t obvious reserve roles that were a particularly good fit for me. Overall, though, I have had a fantastic career so far, and I sincerely hope it’s nowhere near ending.
You have made it very public that you have fought and beaten cancer. How has this changed you as a person?
I have. For the record in November 2024, I was diagnosed with stage 4 prostate cancer, and I’ve been through chemotherapy, radiotherapy, and am now on continued hormone therapy. It was brutal treatment, and at times quite frightening, but my 3-monthly blood tests are now coming back with the critical PSA indicator as “undetectable”.
How has that changed me? Well, I am certainly massively more aware of aircrew health concerns, and much more sympathetic to anybody who is going through a similar journey themselves. It’s also created a bit of an internal conflict, as I both feel rather more mortal and with an imperative to achieve things with the years ahead of me, and more fragile with a greater need for self-care in everything I do.
I’d rather not have gone through all that, but I think it has made me a better person for the experience.
Now you have achieved ‘Professor’, what remaining goals do you have? What would you hope to be doing in 10 years’ time?
I really want to use the fact that I’m a Professor to achieve important things which I can do with this status. A major project right now is to create an MSc in Flight Test Engineering at Cranfield, which will include around 70 flying hours and train people to manage flight test projects at airframers around the world, along with short courses that will use components of that. I am building a research and teaching group here at Cranfield which will be of real utility to the world’s aircraft developers, both in providing direct support to them, and in training their own team members. There are definitely some research questions about best practices in flying, and flying instruction, that I’d very much like to engage with as well – the MoD’s future needs for next generation training aircraft have engaged me for the last few years, and those challenges are just getting ever more interesting. Another big research area for me has been the impact that climate change is having on aviation, and I won’t be leaving that question alone.
What particular advantages does Cranfield University have over other academic establishments offering post graduate degrees in aviation?
Cranfield is an amazing place, with some of the best researchers and teachers in the world, some superb facilities, and of-course Cranfield Airport. That we don’t have an undergraduate course also frees up our time to conduct major research programmes and means that we’re less in competition with the many brilliant universities delivering those, and so can readily collaborate with them. I’d recommend anybody, in any field of aviation, looks hard at our range of courses for their professional career development.
Which gives you the most pleasure/satisfaction, your work or your flying?
I love being in the overlap between flying, engineering, and research. For as long as I’m somewhere in that overlap, I’m a very happy man.
Describe a typical working day for you at University?
The word “typical” really doesn’t apply to my working day. I may be flying a research project either in a real aeroplane or one of our research simulators, teaching brilliant postgraduate students at master’s or doctoral level, appearing in front of a camera explaining aspects of aeronautics on the news or a documentary, or in meetings about one of the many research projects I’m involved in. Less fun, even than the meetings, but vital is also the amount of time any professor spends writing grant applications for the next research project.
Do you take part in the flying laboratory exercises which the University runs?
Not often. The National Flying Laboratory Centre, run by my colleague Captain Rob Harrison do a superb job and I occasionally interact with that, and will use their team and aircraft for our coming flight test teaching. However, they mostly support taught courses at multiple universities, whilst I mostly work on research.
If you could turn the clock back to when you were 18, did you make the correct career choice?
Yes, definitely. I might have done things in a different order, but I’d have done the same things.
Would you recommend a career in academia to young people today?
Well, that’s difficult, because I see myself as having a career in aviation but just happen to work in an academic setting right now. I enjoy academia as a workplace, but would recommend that anybody has a primary profession, whether that’s in aeronautical engineering or writing poetry, that allows them to work in a university, or other places as well.
If time travel was possible, would you rather go back 100 years or forward?
Oh, forwards definitely. However exciting the 1920s and 1930s may have been, the world – with a few hiccups – is on average becoming better, healthier, safer, and more exciting. Somebody able and motivated, working in 2126 will have so many amazing opportunities in front of them that I can only guess at.
Also, selfishly, they didn’t know how to cure my cancer in 1926.
Do you have any aviation heroes alive or dead you would like to meet?
I’ve been lucky in meeting many of my heroes, including Eric Brown, Gene Krantz, John Farley, Buzz Aldrin and Anne Welch.
However, I’d love to have met Neil Armstrong, or my Dad’s favourite war hero, after whom I was named, Guy Gibson. I have a facsimile of Guy Gibson’s logbook in my study, which I dip into often, and there’s not a line in it that I wouldn’t like to talk to him about and learn from.
What or how would your epitaph read? (I ask this of everybody!)
I hope that it’ll conclude that I left the world a better place than I entered it. Also, hopefully nothing about dying in an air accident!
When not involved in aviation, how do you enjoy your spare time?
I read a lot, and I write a lot. I should have two books coming out this year, a 3rd edition of my textbook Initial Airworthiness and my first novel, Wings on a Mountain which will be an aviation centered thriller and the first of a series. After that, I’m planning 1-2 more books a year for the next few years, a mixture of fiction and professional textbooks.
In between times, I enjoy growing and preparing my own food, from vegetables to jams to homemade wine. The last for consumption firmly after, not before flying.
What attributes did your best instructor have?
Enormous patience, and the ability and willingness to explain why we do things the way we do.
The opposite, in fact, of my worst instructor, who I’m glad to say is no longer instructing.
This has been an interesting meeting and once again, I’m left asking myself how much time must I have wasted in my career? But everyone’s life is different and that’s what makes these conversations so interesting.
Thanks again to Guy Gratton for allowing us into his office, his cockpit and his life.