WHEN he was a small boy, Tom Lyons dreamed of joining the jet set.

"I must have been four or five when I first told my dad what I wanted to do," he says, striding towards the Harrier GR9 parked outside the aircraft hanger.

Wing Commander Tom Lyons is commanding officer of the Fast Jet Test Squadron at Boscombe Down.

He is a graduate of the Empire Test Pilots' School, which is also based at Boscombe Down and is widely recognised as being one of the best of its kind in the world.

Becoming a test pilot, Tom explains, is one of the few jobs in the RAF that you have to apply and compete for and the competition is fierce.

The majority of successful candidates have an average of six years' front-line experience before they get to the squadron and most are either qualified weapons or flying instructors.

Each squadron there are two others, servicing helicopters and transport aircraft takes on an average of just three pilots a year.

After training for a year, test pilots serve on one of these squadrons for three years before returning to active service.

No pilot gets a second crack of the whip, although it is possible to do what Tom has done and return as commanding officer.

Key requisites for the job are piloting skills, analytical and communication skills and an inquisitive nature.

"Analytical skills are most usually associated with an academic background the US only take pilots with an engineering degree but we make exceptions," he explains.

"Test pilots have to be able to talk to engineers and turn pilot-speak into engineer-speak and vice versa."

Understanding the process that make things work is another vital area.

"A lot of what we do is thinking outside the box is it wrong really or do we just think so because it's different."

All the pilots in the FJTS are trained on Harriers, Tornadoes, Jaguars or Typhoons.

So, is it the case that nothing enters service until it gets the thumbs-up from the squadron?

"I wouldn't say nothing, but it is unusual for something to go into service without us seeing it first," says Tom.

The public perception of a test pilot puts them in the air most of them time but Tom points out that flying time accounts for only 12-15 hours a month.

Paperwork, risk assessments, making sure that planes and equipment are in the right place when required, and sortie planning and preparation, briefing and debriefing, and compiling reports for the customers' who have commissioned them in the first place, accounts for most of the rest of it.

Being a test pilot one thinks in terms of Chuck Yeager breaking the sound barrier and Neil Armstrong landing on the Moon is perceived as dangerous.

"Danger is a very emotive word we talk in terms of risk," says Tom matter-of-factly.

"The higher the risk associated with a trial, the more focus there is on lowering the risk as far as practicable."

He has never yet had to eject, he says, but there have been a number of close shaves.

"You don't have time to be scared most of the time because you are concentrating on the job," he says.