Eric "Winkle" Brown til Flyoperativt Forum for 3. gang!

Foto: Per Gram

Eric “Winkle” Brown is slight of build and grey of hair. He speaks with a calm and quiet tone of confidence that only a life of achievement can bestow on a person. He tells the tales of his life, and there are so many, in an understated manner that belies the remarkable nature of his exploits. I know this, as I am one of many that have enjoyed one of his lectures and a personal slideshow as inspiring as it is captivating.
So why do I feel that he is worthy of mention, as Greatest Aviation Person?
I could talk about his flying; let me just scratch the surface:
He holds a world record for 487 aircraft types in his Pilot’s Logbook (though this does not include variants, so Spitfire and Seafire count only as one entry). In this he includes gliders, fighters, bombers, amphibians and flying boats, airliners and helicopters.
He holds the record for the most aircraft carrier landings (2407) and most catapult launches. He performed the first landing of a high performance twin engined aircraft on an aircraft carrier (a de Havilland Mosquito on HMS Indefatigable) and the first landing of a jet aircraft on an aircraft carrier (a de Havilland Sea Vampire on HMS Ocean, 3 December 1945). He flew tests on Rocket Assisted Takeoffs in Seafires and deliberately landed a Sea Vampire wheels-up on an aircraft carrier with a flexible rubber carpet as a deck – a proposed solution to the stresses induced by hard deck landings.
His records are very unlikely every to be broken.
I could talk about some of his achievements and honours:
He holds the distinction of having been awarded successively the MBE, OBE and CBE, together with the DSC and AFC. In 1982-1983 he was the Royal Aeronautical Society Council President and was awarded an Honorary Fellowship of the Royal Aeronautical Society (FRAeS) 2004. The British Association of Aviation Consultants gave him The Sir Peter Masefield Gold Medal for prolonged and outstanding service to aviation in 1997.
The Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators gave him the Award of Honour for outstanding lifetime contribution to aviation in 2005, the award was given jointly to Neil Armstrong. Part of the citation read “Eric Brown is one of the few remaining flying legends and, in the words of Hawker Aircraft Chief Test Pilot, Bill Humble, ‘in an era of outstanding test pilots, Winkle was simply the best.”

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