Ackroyd born in Muttra, India, on 31 January 1937, and grew up in England from the age of seven.
Ackroyd started his engineering career with an apprenticeship at Saunders-Roe in East Cowes on the Isle of Wight.
His final job as an apprentice was in the design department working on the SR53 prototype fighter aircraft with a mixed jet and rocket propulsion system.
[3] In 1981 he was involved with the Vanishing Point rocket sled which achieved the World Ice Speed Record at 248 mph (399.1 km/h) in 1981, and in 1999, the Gillette Mach 3 Challenger which set the motorcycle speed record of 365 mph (587.4 km/h).
In 1987 he teamed up with the Swedish aeronautical engineer Per Lindstrand and Richard Branson for a project to cross the Atlantic in a balloon.