John Allison

Air Chief Marshal Sir John Shakespeare Allison, (born 24 March 1943) is a retired senior Royal Air Force (RAF) commander. He was the gentleman usher to the Sword of State.

RAF career Educated at the Royal Grammar School, Guildford, Allison entered the Royal Air Force College Cranwell as a flight cadet in 1961. On graduation, he was commissioned as a pilot officer in July 1964. Flying the F-4 Phantom, he went on to command No. 228 OCU, then Station Commander at RAF Wildenrath, and Secretary to the Chiefs of Staff Committee at the Ministry of Defence. He served as Air Officer Commanding RAF Strike Command from 25 July 1997 to 28 March 1999 when he retired from the RAF. Allison had 4,612 hours of flying experience across his career, though only 18 hours on this particular aircraft type. A report by the Air Accidents Investigation Branch concluded that Allison had manually operated the cooling system of the Daimler Benz DB605A engine into a level of overheating, and had interpreted the thermostat-controlled release of coolant fluid to be an indicator of imminent engine failure. Allison made an attempt to land at the designated airstrip but approached too fast, aborting landing and climbing to an altitude to pass over the M11 motorway. Allison then attempted to land in a ploughed field nearby, but the aircraft nosed over and the pilot became trapped until rescue workers arrived. Alison was unharmed.

He was director of strategy, and subsequently, operations director at Jaguar Racing from May 2001 to October 2004. He left as a result of restructuring following the sale of the company to Red Bull Racing and went to Rolls-Royce plc as project director for the redevelopment of the Bristol Site in February 2005. On 1 December 2005, he was appointed Gentleman Usher to the Sword of State.

One of his sons is a glider pilot, while another, James, is the technical director of the Mercedes-AMG Petronas Formula 1 Team.