Captain Eric Brown ?

[mmitch]

Two books- 'Wings on my Sleeve' and Wings of the Luftwaffe' (I think)
I think he had more than nine lives!
de Havilland built 3 DH108s. The first killed Geoffery de Havilland over Thames near Gravesend. The second killed a RAF test pilot. The third Eric Brown survived because he said he was too short to get a broken neck like the others!
Not long before he died he spent the day at Brooklands including a go in the Concorde sim, still as sharp even then.
mmich.

[Dave Smith]

You have to admire Capt. Brown, for not only did he fly an astonishing number of aircraft but some were virtually "flying coffins"! e.g. the Me 163 was a rocket powered interceptor against the US daylight raids. It used rocket power to reach them & used the speed attained to attack them. But then, you had to glide down- & I suspect it glided like the proverbial brick building- & land on the skid under the fuselage. He flew one just to see how it behaved, so hats off to him. Mentioning the RN at Eastchurch reminded me of a humerus story of that time. The officers mess were all waiting for lunch, & it was late. So they started asking questions & one of their colleagues admitted responsibility. "Afraid that aircraft circling up there is the cook, he borrowed my aircraft a hour ago & seems loath to come down"! ( No r/t in those days). 

[MartinR]

As a footnote to Stuart, the USS Pennsylvania (ACR-4), later renamed the USS Pittsburgh, has a connection to Kent.  On 9 September 1920 she ran aground on rocks off Libau and was escorted to Sheerness.  She was then moved upriver to Chatham Dockyard where she underwent repairs until December that year.  The Dean of Rochester organised a series of hospitality events for her crew and on departure they paid for the new number 3 bell at Rochester Cathedral.  The bell bears the inscription "U.S.S. PITTSBURGH IN MEMORY OF 1920".
A couple of years back I wrote an article entitled "A ship in the Belfry"  which was uploaded to the old site, and then reloaded into the new one once it was running.  Also see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Pennsylvania_(ACR-4) where there is apicture of the bell.

[stuartwaters]

Captain Eric 'Winkle' Brown - the most accomplished test pilot ever.


The history of naval aviation started in 1910, when the Royal Navy sent officers to the Royal Aero Club at Eastchurch on the Isle of Sheppey. The first man to fly an aircraft off a ship was an American, Eugene Ely, who in November 1910 took off from a temporary flying-off platform erected aboard the cruiser USS Birmingham. Two months later, he landed again on a temporary platform built on another US Navy cruiser, the USS Pennsylvania.


On the 10th January 1912, Lieutenant Charles Samson became the first Briton to fly off a ship when he took off from a ramp fitted to the battleship HMS Africa moored off Sheerness. On the 9th May 1912, Samson became the first pilot ever to take off from a moving ship when he took off from the battleship HMS Hibernia in Weymouth Bay.


The experiments with flying-off and landing ramps fitted to ships ultimately proved unsuccessful and dangerous. What was needed was a ship with a full-length flight deck and the first of these was an ex-ocean liner, originally built as the Italian SS Conte Rosso. This ship was purchased by the Royal Navy while under construction in 1916 and was converted into the worlds first 'flat top' aircraft carrier - HMS Argus. That ship was commissioned into the Royal Navy on 6th September 1918. The first few years of her service were spent conducting trials of various types of aircraft and methods of safely launching and recovering aircraft. The experience gained from those experiments were incorporated into the conversions of the battlecruisers HMS Furious, HMS Courageous and HMS Glorious into aircraft carriers during the early 1920s. The Chilean battlecruiser Almirante Cochrane was purchased from the builders and similarly converted into an aircraft carrier and commissioned into the Royal Navy as HMS Eagle in 1924. The experience was incorporated into the the worlds first ship to be designed from the ground up as an aircraft carrier, HMS Hermes, commissioned in 1924.


Eric Brown was born on the 21st January 1919 and over the course of his life achieved a number of firsts. He was the first man to land a twin-engined aircraft on an aircraft carrier, the first to land a jet-powered aircraft on a carrier, the first to land a helicopter on a ship. He flew more different types of aircraft than any other pilot (487) and made more aircraft carrier landings and take-offs than any other pilot to date (2,271 and 2,401 respectively).

He died on 21st February 2016 aged 97.

[castle261]

I am surprised NO answers to my ` Captain Eric Brown`.

He was the Fleet Air Arm pilot - Who - The first man to land a plane on an ship - with a flat deck.
Then he became  the test pilot - for the Fleet Air Arm - flying 487 different models of all types of aircraft. 

[castle261]

Just put - captain eric brown - in with your cursor - programme may be on iplayer.
Broadcast on Channel 4 early this morning - I will say - no more ?