Lieutenant Colonel (U) Mohd Hairy Erwandy was commissioned on 3 September 1999 after completing his Initial Officer Training (IOT) No 179 at the Royal Air Force (RAF) College, Cranwell in the United Kingdom (UK).
After completion of his basic flying training, he then spent most of his flying career as a CN235 pilot (since 2003) at No 5 Sqn where he assumed the Flight Commander Training (FCT) post in 2011, and thereafter, as Officer Commanding (OC) in 2013. To date, he holds the record of the most flying hours on type (2842 hours). He is certified as an Instructor Operating Station (IOS) Level D Full Flight Simulator Training by Sapura Defence, Malaysia in 2008 and completed his Qualified Fixed-Wing Instructor's (QFI) Course at Flight Training Tamworth (FTT), Australia in 2009. He is also a qualified Maintenance Test Pilot (MTP) obtained from Flight Test Center Indonesian Aerospace (IAe) in 2016.
His operational experiences include; regional transport missions such as International Monitoring Team (IMT) in Mindanao, Philippines; and as one of the crew for Brunei Darussalam's first Humanitarian Aid and Disaster Relief (HADR) operation codenamed 'Ops Badai Berlalu' for the Boxing day Tsunami in Banda Aceh, Republic Indonesia in 2005. He also participated as the Air Mission Commander (AMC) for another HADR mission: Haiyan Typhoon in Tacloban, Philippines in 2013.
His career appointments included being Commanding Officer (CO) No 7 Wing (2017-2019), Staff Officer 1 Staff Duties/ Doctrine in the Ministry of Defence (MINDEF) (Dec 2019 to July 2020). At that same period, he was appointed as the Chief of Staff (COS) for RBAF Task Force Support (TFS) COVID-19. He was then appointed as Defence Adviser of the UK (2020-2023). Upon his return, he assumed the post as Assistant Chief of Staff A7 (Training) commencing from July 2023. However, this tour was also short-lived as he was appointed as Commander Operations Group (COG) from 23 January 2024 until 9 October 2025. He has since taken over as Chief of Staff (COS), Royal Brunei Air Force (RBAirF) Headquarters commencing 21 November 2025.
His staff training includes; the 8th RBAF Junior Staff Course (JSC) (2008), and the Defence Academy (DA) RBAF Command and Staff College (CSC) 5th cohort (2015) where he achieved the RBAF Commendation Award and took the opportunity to complete a Master's Degree in International Security (Mint'lSy) facilitated by Massey University, New Zealand (2016). He then completed his Executive Development Programme for Senior Government Officials (EDP SGO) in 2019.
He is married to Aliza and they have four (4) wonderful children; Hafiz (2002), Danish (2003), Dania (2005) and Zaara (2020). Lieutenant Colonel (U) Hairy enjoys mountain biking, running and football in his pastime.
