{"id":5326,"date":"2025-12-16T03:45:55","date_gmt":"2025-12-16T03:45:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sailsporttalk.com\/?p=5326"},"modified":"2025-12-20T14:07:01","modified_gmt":"2025-12-20T14:07:01","slug":"david-sandy-aerospace-corporation-uk","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sailsporttalk.com\/index.php\/2025\/12\/16\/david-sandy-aerospace-corporation-uk\/","title":{"rendered":"David Sandy, Aerospace Corporation UK"},"content":{"rendered":"<body>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">David Sandy is the managing director of The Aerospace Corporation UK Ltd, where he is responsible for growing the company and facilitating United Kingdom\u2013United States integration. Among the key customers of Aerospace UK are the UK Ministry of Defence (UK MoD), the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), and the UK Space Agency (UKSA).<br><br>On December 8, 2025, Karen Lile and David Sandy co-founded the Space and Ocean Unified Sustainability and Systems Ad Hoc Council, to help define new professions being created for Space and Ocean and the possibility of adding another Livery Company to London\u2019s 114 Livery Companies, some of which date back 900 years. It is long process that begins with permission of Guildhall as a Guild then Company then Livery Company. However, the Founding Council represents leadership from every sector of space and oceans and there is significant interest in this effort.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sail Sport Talk is broadcast from the Sports Byline broadcast studios in San Francisco with Karen Lile and Rick Tittle as co-hosts every Tuesday, live to 100 million people in 168 countries on 10 platforms and 700 radio stations, with a later broadcast 6 hours later on the American Forces Network.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-vimeo wp-block-embed-vimeo wp-embed-aspect-16-9 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"(Audio Only) Show 350 Sail Sport Talk with Karen Lile and Rick Tittle: David Sandy, Aerospace Corporation UK\" src=\"https:\/\/player.vimeo.com\/video\/1147193845?dnt=1&amp;app_id=122963\" width=\"500\" height=\"281\" frameborder=\"0\" allow=\"autoplay; fullscreen; picture-in-picture; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\"><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><br><br><strong>Biography<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Prior to joining Aerospace UK in 2023, David Sandy had a 34-year career in the Royal Navy, rising to the position of commander after undertaking several critical operational, planning, and strategic roles with increasing levels of responsibility. Throughout his career, Sandy\u2019s specific focus has been on enhancing the end-to-end delivery of military capabilities in permissive and nonpermissive environments at the unit, formation, and task group level to deliver UK defence tasks. As the joint operations officer in the Middle East and chief of staff to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization\u2019s (NATO) maritime Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR), Sandy worked with a wide variety of international partners, eventually becoming deputy commander and chief of the international staff as the UK\u2019s national representative in NATO\u2019s Standing Maritime Task Group.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Previously, as military assistant to the director of strategy at the UK MoD, Sandy contributed to the development of the UK\u2019s Management of Defence Programme (MDP), regularly reporting to the chief of defence, staff, and the Permanent Under-Secretary of State for Defence. Returning to MoD in 2020, he was appointed as the first chief of staff to Director Space in the newly formed MoD Space Directorate. Responsible for military strategy and space cohesion, he supported the development and delivery of the MoD\u2019s first-ever defence space strategy and\u2014as part of the core planning team\u2014delivery of the first \u201cspace proposition\u201d to the government in 2021, where MoD Space Directorate was awarded \u00a31.5 billion over 10\u00a0years in addition to \u00a35 billion for satellite communications. Sandy\u2019s last MoD roles included supporting the security aspects of the European Union transition, leading a COVID-19 defence crisis management team, and serving as the maritime lead for UK Special Operations, where he provided domain integration and policy support to overseas operational delivery in support of the allied response to the war in Ukraine.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h4 class=\"wp-block-heading\">EDUCATION<\/h4>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sandy earned a master\u2019s degree in business management from the University of Portsmouth and an MBA from the University of Northampton. His master\u2019s thesis on \u201cgrey-zone\u201d tactics was used to help shape UK MoD space strategic policies and priorities. Sandy has also achieved qualifications in programme management and information technology.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Sail Sport Talk Interview on Dec 15, 2025 09:40 -8 GMT Transcription<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rick Tittle:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Welcome back to the show. Rick Tittle with you coast-to-coast and around the world on the American Forces Radio Network. 9:40 Pacific Time on Tuesdays, we check in with our friends at SailSportTalk.com. And as per usual, co-hosting the segment with me is our friend Karen Lile. How are you doing, Karen?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Karen Lile:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I am doing fantastic, Rick. It\u2019s so good to talk to you again this week, as we do every week. We also have a guest. Very pleased to welcome David Sandy, Managing Director of the Aerospace Corporation UK, after a long career in the Royal Navy as well. David, welcome to the show. And tell us \u2014 you and Karen have collaborated on a sort of new mission, haven\u2019t you?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">David Sandy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yes. Well, hello everybody. It\u2019s a pleasure to be here. Hello, and thanks so much for having me on, Karen, Rick. I have been doing a bit of research, and I believe that you\u2019re quite the dream team when it comes to online broadcasting. So I\u2019m very pleased to join you two legends today.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And yes, Rick, you\u2019re dead right. Karen and I have been in cahoots, as we say over here, talking to members of the UK space fraternity \u2014 and more importantly, the UK government \u2014 on where we might be able to collaborate over the next, you know, three or four months.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Karen Lile:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I would like to say that, Dave, it\u2019s just such a pleasure to convert our rugby game experience into something institutional, because we met at the In and Out Naval and Military Club right after the Army\u2013Navy rugby game \u2014 and of course you remember who won, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">David Sandy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Definitely. And I believe that the U.S. have replicated that fine win this past weekend with the U.S. Navy win over the Army.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rick Tittle:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">They did. And I just wanted to go back a minute, because my father was a lieutenant commander in the United States Navy, and I\u2019ve always \u2014 I\u2019m a history guy \u2014 I\u2019ve been fascinated by the Royal Navy, especially Lord Nelson. And I\u2019ve been to the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich and seen the Cutty Sark.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">What\u2019s it like when you serve \u2014 when you think about \u201cBritannia rules the waves\u201d \u2014 and when you served in there, how much of that history did you kind of feel in your bones, like centuries-long domination of the waves?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">David Sandy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s a great question, Rick, and I\u2019ve got a great answer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So, you know, I didn\u2019t have a maritime history in my family. I was the first \u2014 and I wasn\u2019t the last. My brother joined me in the Navy a few years after I joined. But there\u2019s something that resonates with being an island nation, with the significance of, you know, the maritime history that we\u2019ve had and will always have.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">You know, you breathe it, you feel it. It kind of follows you down Whitehall when you\u2019re in London. I\u2019ve also been to Greenwich. I\u2019ve also been to Dartmouth Naval College. And, you know, the last three or four years of my professional career in the military, I was very fortunate and lucky to have a friend in Lord Nelson, who stands at the top of Nelson\u2019s Column and stares out up the country \u2014 not down Whitehall, but back into the country \u2014 as a proud maritime historian.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He was quite clearly, you know, having the last laugh on everybody, that he was facing away from Parliament and not down towards the lawmakers who gave him so much hell during his time as Admiral Nelson.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rick Tittle:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And, yeah, King George wouldn\u2019t give him a barony \u2014 he thought it would be too expensive, I guess.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Just one follow-up question. I remember when the Falklands War happened, and I was in high school, and I remember seeing the HMS Invincible steaming toward there, and the flight deck was curved up. And I thought, \u201cWell, that looks ridiculous.\u201d And my dad said, \u201cThat\u2019s actually smart, because when we launch our planes, they dip down below the deck and have to come back up.\u201d So I\u2019ll give you credit with the curved-up flight deck.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">David Sandy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yeah, the Brits have always been reasonably good at innovation, and it\u2019s because scale has a mass on it, if it\u2019s on the chord. And, you know, you\u2019re very fortunate in the U.S. \u2014 the U.S. military and U.S. society \u2014 to benefit from having quite a lot of land and therefore being able to scale much easier than we have in the UK.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The ski ramp, as we called it \u2014 and I served on a couple of aircraft carriers \u2014 the ski ramp was designed so that we wouldn\u2019t have to have very expensive jets. They were much more modest jets, which meant that they didn\u2019t go as fast on takeoff, therefore you needed to give them a helping hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rick Tittle:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">For the Harrier, which became a great platform for the UK and definitely earned its spurs during the Falklands War. Well, your Harrier jumped jet too, and I guess someone told me that it uses up half of its fuel jumping straight up, so they tried to avoid that, right?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">David Sandy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yeah, and if you speak to professionals \u2014 and I\u2019ve got a couple of people that still fondly remember piloting them \u2014 the landing was a controlled crash, which is essentially hover above the deck until you almost run out of fuel and then try and land it without bouncing too hard.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rick Tittle:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">All right, Karen, enough VTOL questions. Go ahead.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Karen Lile:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I indulge you a little bit, Rick, here, because I know that you\u2019re just such a history buff. I didn\u2019t want to break the spell.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rick Tittle:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thank you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Karen Lile:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But Dave, you know, you and I know each other as friends first. We\u2019ve known each other for a couple of years. I didn\u2019t know about your involvement with Aerospace Corporation UK, really, until this last month when I was in London for a month. But what took you from the Navy to space?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">David Sandy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So it wasn\u2019t a massive leap \u2014 you can never get away from it when you\u2019re in space. And if I say fundamental more than once, someone shoot me, please.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So I was the first Chief of Staff in the UK Space Directorate in the Ministry of Defence, sort of pre-COVID and post. We did a big review in around 2018 across Defence and realised that we were missing one of the domains. Not deliberately \u2014 we were doing space \u2014 but we hadn\u2019t made it overt, and we hadn\u2019t made it openly public.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It was kind of being done behind closed doors, and therefore we were missing influence with allies, partners, and industry. It was a little bit difficult to put a \u201cspace badge\u201d on things, and therefore to fight across the other domains for purposeful money to be able to do big, impactful stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So a couple of people got together in Defence and decided we needed some sort of joint unit. I was very fortunate to be in between jobs and \u2014 as a bit of a problem solver \u2014 I came into space that way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">That was back in, sort of, like, you know, 2018. Since then, I kind of hung around, did a little bit of enablement stuff.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I think you know me now \u2014 you know me, it might feel like a short time, but we\u2019re very good friends, Karen, and I\u2019m a problem solver. So space needed some problem solving, I was around, I got into it. Then I put it on the back burner and went and did some maritime stuff.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And when I was leaving the Ministry of Defence, an opportunity to talk with Aerospace and help them solve some of their problems came up. So we had a good conversation, and the rest, as you say, is history.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rick Tittle:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">When I think about \u2014 you talk about the MOD \u2014 is everything still handled in Whitehall, or is that more ceremonial now?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">David Sandy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So it\u2019s a bit of both. It\u2019s obviously a landmark that is, you know, quite spectacular. If you\u2019ve been in and around Whitehall, you can see the history, you know, and you can see the heritage of how we, you know, maintain sovereign ownership of, you know, delicate situations around the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But the fighting arms themselves are referenced in the building, but mainly their staff are out \u2014 you know, the Navy have got a home in Portsmouth and Plymouth. The nuclear arm of our fighting services are up in Scotland and down in Plymouth. The Army are, you know, all over the place, really, and so are the RAF. They\u2019re quite dispersed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">But their chiefs have got a seat on the fifth floor, one side of which, you know, faces Whitehall and is where the military staff sit. The other side faces away from Whitehall \u2014 is where the politicians sit. So it\u2019s run as a secretary of defence, you know, a secretariat of defence, and then the fighting arms \u2014 Army, Navy, Air Force \u2014 and now space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Karen Lile:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Well, really, the square \u2014 the historic square mile too \u2014 which is part of the domain that we occupy when we\u2019re over there in London, you and I, with the livery companies. One hundred and fourteen livery companies in all of their guild halls. And actually each one that supports some branch of the military, and used to be the military, because they all had their own military units that defended the City of London back nine hundred years ago and so forth.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Why did you say to me, when we were sitting in the Goat Brasserie in the In-and-Out Club, that we needed a space livery, when I was talking about the Stationers and the livery that I was in? Because that was kind of formative for us. That was the pivotal point where we made a change.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">David Sandy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Yeah. So we were talking about the sea, the sky, and we were talking about them as anchors \u2014 how when you look at them, they feel endless, but they also order some thinking. And, you know, I suppose for centuries they\u2019ve been navigational guides.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then we got talking about technology, and we spoke about there\u2019s a true sense of, you know, vastness in what drives modern professions. We talked a little bit about space operations and AI and digital innovation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And then we realized that, you know, when we talk like this naturally, some people understand it and some people don\u2019t. But we very quickly settled on the fact that these new professions don\u2019t seem to be, you know, championed anywhere.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We can see that they sort of overlap in other delivery areas and other organizations, but they don\u2019t have their own identity. And that was when you and I started talking about how do we place symbolism on some of these new, complex, digital professions that are going to endure \u2014 you know, the next iteration of big professions that will endure for the next, you know, two, three, five hundred years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rick Tittle:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Karen, we have time for one more question. Go ahead, because I hogged earlier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Karen Lile:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s okay. So I\u2019m going to tell you something, Rick. You don\u2019t know this about me, because we don\u2019t have a space livery yet to define my job. But I actually do design and invent governance systems for AI and so forth that are applied to space, which is why Dave and I were talking about this.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And Dave, I sent a document to you that was starting from calligraphy in San Francisco when I got back from London. It went under the bay, the same route that Rick takes when he goes to work to the Sports Byline, and then went by plane to you, and you have it now \u2014 this document \u2014 which is the instrument of the founding council for the Space and Oceans Unified Sustainability and Systems Ad Hoc Council.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">How does it feel like to have that little document in your hand that\u2019s just about to institute something?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">David Sandy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s very historic, and thank you for your hard work in getting it across to us.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">So there\u2019s an action on us now to form our little ad hoc council of half a dozen, a dozen people, and figure out what we do, because this is too important. It\u2019s so much bigger than you and I.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">And we really do need to merge the sea, the sky, the digital environment that we live in, and the new professions, because I think people will now begin to trust us as the sponsors of this technology and help guide everybody to what would have been an unseen future \u2014 but now I think we\u2019re defining it day by day.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rick Tittle:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">It\u2019s David Sandy, Managing Director of the Aerospace Corporation, UK Limited. You can go to aerospace.org for more information.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">David, thank you so much for your time. We really appreciate it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">David Sandy:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Thanks, Rick, and thanks, Karen. Delighted to see you on the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rick Tittle:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">All right, Karen, we\u2019ll catch up next week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Karen Lile:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">We will do. Thanks, Rick. Always good to talk to you.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Rick Tittle:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">All right, always. Let\u2019s take a quick break, and we will come on back on Sports Byline.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><\/p>\n<\/body>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>David Sandy is the managing director of The Aerospace Corporation UK Ltd, where he is responsible for growing the company and facilitating United Kingdom\u2013United States integration. Among the key customers of Aerospace UK are the UK Ministry of Defence (UK MoD), the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy (BEIS), and the UK Space Agency (UKSA). On December 8, 2025, Karen Lile and David Sandy co-founded the Space and Ocean Unified Sustainability and Systems Ad Hoc Council, to help define new professions being created for Space and Ocean and the possibility of adding another Livery Company to London\u2019s 114 Livery&#8230; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":5327,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5326","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the_show"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/sailsporttalk.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/IMG_0512.jpeg?fit=788%2C486&ssl=1","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sailsporttalk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5326","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sailsporttalk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sailsporttalk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sailsporttalk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sailsporttalk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5326"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/sailsporttalk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5326\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5335,"href":"https:\/\/sailsporttalk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5326\/revisions\/5335"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sailsporttalk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5327"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sailsporttalk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sailsporttalk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sailsporttalk.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}