Confessions of Inzpire’s No.6: Leading the Way as Head of Human Factors
15 Jun 23
Human FactorsBlogInzpire Culture
BY Tug Wilson
Tug Wilson joined Inzpire as employee number six back in January 2008. Since then, he has built our Human Factors Division and helped shape the brilliant reputation we have today. Having recently released his latest book: ‘Confessions of a Flying Instructor: Teaching the RAF’s Fighter Pilots’, we ask Tug why his past experiences in the Royal Air Force make him a first-rate instructor and role model for aspiring aircrew.
Me on exchange with the US Marine Corps in front of a F18 Hornet
Royal Air Force
I joined my beloved RAF all the way back in 1985 as a direct entrant officer cadet (so not through university) and graduated from RAF Cranwell as a lowly acting pilot officer in February 86. Having not flown before, I was sent to RAF Swinderby to start elementary flying training on the Chipmunk. Flying did not come easily to me and I was a bit of a slow starter, but the RAF loves a trier, and I worked hard to achieve the required standard to pass the course. Everyone joined as a potential fast-jet pilot in those days, so I was then farmed off to the Jet Provost school at RAF Linton-on-Ouse, where I spent a year doing basic flying training on the JP3 and then onto the faster and sleeker JP5. Again, I fooled everyone and made the course standard, so that bought me a slot at RAF Valley flying the amazing Hawk.
It was on this course that I got my wings and to this day that was the fourth best day of my life (after marrying Annie and the birth of my two daughters) – that’s how much it meant to me. Having become proficient in flying the Hawk, my final school was at RAF Chivenor and was called Tactical Weapons Training. Tac Wpns was a bloodbath! Tough trips learning how to fly air combat; deliver weapons; low-level ground attack etc. Despite being horribly scarred by the experience, I got my dream posting to fly the Phantom – a proper war-proven fighter.
Me in my beautiful blue Phantom
My first front-line tour was on the premier fighter squadron in the RAF (we all say that!), 92 Squadron, and having become combat ready, I spent plenty of time on Battleflight (Quick Reaction Alert – QRA) as the first line of defence for Central Europe (at about 24 years old!). 92 Sqn folded in to 91 and I was posted for a year to 56 Sqn at Wattisham as the Phantom was drawn down from service.
I decided to bail out a few months early from the Phantom (although it killed me to do so) and took an instructing post at Valley on the newly formed Tac Wpns unit up there on 74 Sqn. All I taught for 18 months was air combat and low-level flying – it was the best job a pilot could ever have. Halfway through that tour, I had to grow up a bit and also trained as a traditional Qualified Flying Instructor (QFI). I loved teaching and out of that tour I became the most hated man in the RAF, as I secured an exchange tour with the US Marine Corps flying the F18 Hornet out of the TOPGUN hangar at Miramar in California. I flew both single-seat and twin-seat Hornets and had an absolute blast. The F18 was the best dogfighting aircraft in the world at the time and I loved flying it. Of course, living in San Diego was awesome too.
At the end of my California adventure, it was back to earth with a bump to fly the Tornado F3 out of Leeming. I have little or no love for the F3 – it had many faults at that time. However, after two years at Leeming, they discovered a serious heart condition in me that grounded me, and I never flew again. My final tour in the RAF was as a flight safety and flying training advisor to the Royal Saudi Air Force, living in Riyadh for three years. I left the RAF in 2003 and became the chief instructor on the Typhoon simulator at RAF Coningsby, working for BAES.
Me sitting in a Tornado F3 cockpit with my youngest daughter, Laura
Joining Inzpire
During my time at Coningsby, I used the knowledge from my master’s degree in air safety management to move into the world of human factors (HF), as it was more dynamic than pure safety training. At around that time, I recruited an ex-military Tornado pilot named Mike 'Simpo' Simpson into the sim. A few months later, Simpo left to join a brand-new small defence company called Inzpire. Through Simpo, I was introduced to Inzpire’s founder, Hugh Griffiths, and when the opportunity came up to bid for a HF contract to teach ab-initio flying training students with the RAF, we both took a leap of faith with each other and won the contract. I started work for Inzpire in January 08 and have been here ever since. I was number six in the company, so we didn’t really have any reputation. I liked the idea that we were building from scratch and trying to be different from the primes, and being partly responsible for starting off that brilliant reputation that we now have.
Head of Human Factors
As head of the division (HoD) in those early days, I had to write all the courseware for our contract, recruit and train our facilitators, and deliver a lot of the training myself. We quickly won a further contract to do the same for flying instructors and it went from there. Over the years we have trained foreign air forces, Formula 1 racing teams, the NHS, heavy industry, and a whole host of other customers.
These days I have all the usual duties of a HoD, including business development, but I still spend a lot of time in the classroom – this is where I am at my best. We can manipulate what we do for any and every audience and I get a kick out of going into new and unusual areas.
My books
I am not sure my books set me up as being a good role model given some of the scrapes I have described in them! I tell a lot of the stories during my courses, and I am always at pains to show that I had to work hard to be a successful pilot, so my students should not be down on themselves if they find they are not very good at the start of a flying training course. None of us are natural pilots and some of us pick things up slower than others (I know I did). I am the perfect example of someone who had to work harder than most to get where I wanted to be. However, I burned bright later in my career I think, so that hard work paid off in the end.
Getting my wings gave me confidence I didn’t have before, and becoming an instructor matured me as an aviator and made me much better overall. If my students get nothing else out of my books, at least they will see how fun we made it – and maybe they think some of the stories are cool! Or maybe they are just amazed at how we survived all the outrageous partying?
Me as a flying instructor in a Hawk
The most rewarding part of my role
It has to be in the classroom. This is where we are face-to-face with our customer and so I have to be on top of my game each time I teach. This keeps me sharp mentally and keeps my outlook younger, as I have to make a connection with the students for our teaching to work. We deliver in a very different way to the normal military course, and it relies on making a direct connection with every one of them. This is not an easy thing to do, so we have to work hard at it all the time. As soon as it becomes easy, we will know we are not doing it properly.
I also really enjoy going into new areas with our HF stuff. I find it stimulating trying to convince new customers of the subject’s worth, and then seeing the transformation of those who were skeptical at the start, as they become true believers by the end. Every audience is different, so I am on my toes all the time trying to take what they say and turn it into powerful learning.
However, easily the most rewarding part is when candidates on our courses either stay behind afterwards or contact me at a later date for coaching outside of the course itself. With those people, I have obviously made an extremely strong connection. As such, they trust me with the most intimate things going on in their lives. If I can make a positive difference, then I have done my job and beyond.
Find out more about the rewarding opportunities available at Inzpire on our careers page.
Latest News
Congratulations to Inzpire's Philip Johnston-Davis who receives King’s Coronation Medal
29.04.24
Inzpire
Philip is recognised for five years of continuous service in the RAF Intelligence Reserves
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