Royal Roads alumnus has the right stuff

Lockheed Martin's chief F-35 test pilot returns to B.C. for Abbotsford Air Show

His office is a cockpit and it could be moving faster than the speed of sound hundreds of kilometres from shore over the Pacific Ocean, or, at the push of a button, hovering in place above the baking California desert.

Not a bad job for a guy who grew up in England dreaming of one day flying into the wild blue yonder.

Andrew Soundy is Lockheed Martin's chief test pilot for its Us$80-million F-35 Lightning II fighter jet. It's a job he has held for eight years, and one he is forever grateful for.

“Literally flying the best airplane in the world right now at 56 (years of age),” said Soundy, who is in town for the Abbotsford Air Show.

Once he's strapped in, it's like the plane is an extension of himself.

“To me, flying the F-35, it's not like I get into the airplane. It's like I put it on.”

Canada is in negotiations with Lockheed Martin to possibly buy 88 of the F-35s.

Helmets are custom-fit for each pilot and plug directly into the jet, and all the tactical displays are projected onto the helmet screen.

While the bottom of the plane is not actually transparent, it might as well be because exterior cameras make it seem like you can look through the floor at the countryside directly below you.

“Just beautiful panoramic displays right in front of you,” Soundy said. “And from a handling perspective, it's like a dream.”

For testing over the Pacific, Soundy will fly for a half-hour from Edwards Air Force Base near Los Angeles, accompanied by a tanker for mid-air refuelling, and then push the envelope of the plane, afterburner on max, for a few hours before heading back.

“Full power ... I wouldn't have it any other way.”

He is in the cockpit for about the time it takes to fly from Vancouver to Maui. “Only you're not just sitting there watching a movie, you're pushing the airplane hard that whole time.”

Soundy was not the first civilian to fly the F-35, but he was the first civilian pilot to graduate from F-35 training at Eglin Air Force Base in northern Florida. He had wanted to fly ever since he was a little boy and made his first solo flight at 16 back in England in a glider with the Air Training Corps. He had his pilot's licence from Royal Roads by 19, before he could legally drive a car.

Sitting seaside in a Coal Harbour restaurant, the conversation wove between Top Gun (“It's entertainment. There are snippets that are based on reality”), how he moved his wife Melanie from San Diego to CFB Cold Lake, Alta., then immediately went back to Southern California and Edwards Air Force Base on his own (“The lovely lady is still with me”), how wonderful and rewarding it was to see the joy on his daughter Morgan's face the first time she watched him zip by 100 metres off the ground and going 800 kilometres an hour with the afterburner lit (“She teared up a bit watching what dad does”).

Soundy's job isn't just flying; he also puts his engineering background to work, and every subtle improvement to the F-35, that's a little piece of him in that plane.

“It's not a normal career, by any stretch. You don't plan these things, they happen, your life unfolds,” Soundy said. “It's how I met my wife and why I have the loving family I have now.

“We're out in the desert there at Edwards and I get to fly an awesome plane every day. Flying an F-35 at Edwards Air Force Base as a kid who wanted to fly, and here I am doing it.”