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- Wings of the Navy
Carrier aircraft, since their beginning, have been a very special kind of machine and demand something equally special of the men who flew them. Landing on a pitching, bucking deck of a carrier, or catapulting over a plunging bow, shipboard aircraft and their pilots had to be exceptional.
Often, the real characteristics of these assorted aircraft lie forgotten in the annals of time but Eric 'Winkle' Brown, the first naval officer to head the elite Aerodynamics Flight at Farnborough, records his cockpit experiences testing British and American carrier aircraft.
Having enjoyed one of the most extraordinary careers in flying, Eric 'Winkle' Brown places on record the flying characteristics, good bad and indifferent, of a myriad of aircraft from the Fairey Swordfish and Albacore , Grumman Avenger and Panther to the Supermarine Seafire, Douglas Dauntless, North American Skyray, de Havilland Sea Vixen and Blackburn Buccaneer.
Highly illustrated with cutaways, photographs and color profiles, Carrier Testing American & British Aircraft (Wings of the Navy) makes a valuable contribution to aviation history and keeps the memory of these diverse and absorbing aircraft alive.
Pages: 342
Size: 8.6 X 12 (inches)
Format: Hardback
Illustrations: b/w and color
Publisher: Hikoki Publications
ISBN: 9781902109329
Product Code: HK932
Eric 'Winkle' Brown
Captain Eric Brown had a 31 year career in the Royal Navy, and is the Fleet Air Arm's most decorated pilot.
After a distinguished operational tour flying from Britain's first escort carrier, he was selected as a test pilot in 1942 and then served at A&AEE Boscombe Down before being appointed Chief Naval Test Pilot at the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough, where he remained for six years. During that time he commanded the Enemy Aircraft Flight, the High Speed Flight and finally the prestigious Aerodynamics Flight.
During the Korean War he served for two years as a test pilot at the US Naval Air Test Center at Patuxent River. Later, in his appointment as Head of the British Naval Air Mission to Germany between 1957 and 1960 he was seconded to the Focke Wulf Company for a spell as their test pilot.
In his test flying career he has flown a world record 490 basic types of aircraft, and made a world record 2,407 aircraft carrier landings in fixed-wing aircraft. He is a past President of the Royal Aeronautical Society, and Honorary Fellow of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots and a Master Pilot of Russia. In 1995 he was inducted into the US Navy's Carrier Aviation Test Pilot Hall of Honor, the only non-American to have received this accolade.
In 2000 he joined a very select group, when he was invited to deliver the Lindbergh Memorial Lecture at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington, and along with Neil Armstrong was awarded an Honorary Doctorate from Edinburgh University in 2008.
Now in his nineties, he still lectures regularly in Britain, Europe and America.
