Meet Nathan Jones, the Royal Air Force pilot who co-founded mental fitness social enterprise Peak State and competed in Prince Harry’s Invictus Games after life-changing injuries
There are times in one’s life when a few short minutes feel stretched to an eternity. For British Royal Air Force pilot Nathan Jones, one such time was an in-flight accident in a Voyager aircraft in which he saved the lives of the more than 200 personnel on board, but was left with severe spinal injuries.
A former professional sportsman, he was determined to recover his fitness and eventually went on to compete in several Invictus Games – the British sporting event for injured Servicemen launched by the Duke of Sussex. He then co-founded a mental fitness social enterprise called Peak State.
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“Using the science behind elite sport psychology, we are trying to create this global community of people that look after their mental fitness and try to empower them,” explains Jones of Peak State.
“We are taking from decades of research into the mental training of elite athletes and democratising that so that anybody can perform at their best.” An early example of their success with the enterprise is working with Australian authorities to roll out the programme among 120,000 first responders in the aftermath of the bush fires of summer 2019/20.
As a flight lieutenant, Jones flew DC10s and Voyagers in campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and Libya. “I went from pretty much the oldest plane in the air force to the very newest,” he says.
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“When you are flying, every second counts, at times down to hundredths of a second, but anyone who knows me knows my personal timekeeping is dreadful. Yet when it comes to flying you must be on the ball and hitting the targets – such as refuelling fighters in the air – at the right height, right speed and right time.”
Jones explains how a pilot’s watch holds more significance than simply telling the time. When you are flying a plane worth US$356 million, there is expensive kit that does that. “Pilots buy watches when they get their ‘wings’ and at certain points in their career, and have them engraved with their squadron ensign or crest,” he says.
“I am wearing my Bremont World Timer which has an engraving of a Voyager refuelling two Typhoons, which I co-designed with Bremont Military. The time zones are marked not by cities, but the ICAO – the four-letter designated codes for those international airfields that we flew to.”
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Nathan Jones’s preferred watch – Bremont Arrow
“The Bremont World Timer has my name and service number engraved on the back, a rotor that looks like the Rolls-Royce engine fan blades and the ICAOs for the airfields I flew to. It holds a real significance in my career and love affair with watches. The Bremont Arrow, their collaboration with the RAF, is a beautiful new watch with a leather strap that I am inclined to wear for formal events.”
- Peak State worked with Australian authorities to roll out mental fitness programmes for Australian first responders in the aftermath of the summer bush fires
- The former British serviceman co-founded Peak State to empower people to look after their mental fitness, using the science behind elite sport psychology