During more than two decades of uninterrupted flying Eric 'Winkle' Brown
enjoyed the most extraordinary career of any test pilot and no pilot has
a logbook that lists a greater variety of aircraft types flown. The
first naval officer to head the élite Aerodynamics Flight at the world
renowned Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, 'Winkle' Brown
fulfilled his childhood ambition to fly German aircraft. Indeed, he was
to fly no fewer than 55 individual German aircraft types, ranging from
such exotic creations as the push-and-pull Dornier Do 335 and the
remarkable little Heinkel He 162 Volksjager to the highly innovative
combat types that were entering the inventory of the Luftwaffe shortly
before the demise of Germany's Third Reich.
'Winkle' Brown also interrogated many of the leading German wartime
aviation personalities, such as Willy Messerschmitt, Ernst Heinkel, Kurt
Tank, and Hanna Reitsch. From his unique knowledge of German aviation,
'Winkle' Brown has selected the most important and most promising
aircraft employed by the Luftwaffe and those evolved for that air arm in
Germany during World War II--the true wings of the Luftwaffe.
He describes their background and characteristics, and together with
more than 200 photographs, color profiles, and sectional drawings
provides an in-depth assessment of the contribution made to the annals
of military aviation in the late 1930s and early 1940s by an aircraft
industry that proved itself truly second to none in ingenuity.
