Eric 'Winkle' Brown, the former Chief Naval Test Pilot and Commanding
Officer of the renowned Aerodynamics Flight at the Royal Aircraft
Establishment, Farnborough, is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as
having flown more types of aircraft than any other pilot in the world.
The ground rules for this assessment were that only pilot-in-command
flights should count, and that marks or variants of a basic type of
aircraft were not included.
This remarkable record is reflected in the fact that Captain Brown is
both the most decorated Fleet Air Arm and British test pilot. The
variety of aircraft he has flown is incredible, and though his test and
naval flying writings are already internationally known, he now has
opened up pages of his flying log books to reveal some of the more
unusual types in his unique experience, and to relate their virtues or
vices.
From the infamous Mitsubishi Zero-Sen and U.S. Navy's piston-engine
Grumman F8F-2 Bearcat to the post-war swept-wing de Havilland Swallow.
From the North American Savage designed to take off from an aircraft
carrier with a nuclear bomb to the Supermarine Attacker, Eric 'Winkle'
Brown has tested their qualities and takes the reader into the cockpits
of those exciting aircraft to thrill to the joys and hazards of flying
both weird and wonderful aircraft with one of the greatest of all
pilots.
