Eric Brown (pilot)

Captain Eric Melrose "Winkle" Brown,, Hon FRAeS (21 January 1920 – 21 February 2016) was a British Royal Navy officer and test pilot who flew 487 types of aircraft, more than anyone else in history.

Brown held the world record for the most aircraft carrier deck take-offs and landings performed (2,407 and 2,271 respectively) and achieved several "firsts" in naval aviation, including the first landings on an aircraft carrier of a twin-engined aircraft, an aircraft with a tricycle undercarriage, a jet aircraft, and a rotary-wing aircraft.

Brown flew almost every category of Royal Navy and Royal Air Force aircraft: glider, fighter, bomber, airliner, amphibian, flying boat and helicopter.

During the Second World War, he flew many types of captured German, Italian, and Japanese aircraft, including new jet and rocket aircraft.

He was a pioneer of jet technology into the postwar era.

Brown was born in Hackney, in the East End of London, but was put up for adoption.

At this time there were few places for adoption in London but more in Scotland and he was adopted by Euphemia and Robert Brown in Edinburgh.

Robert was a former balloon observer and pilot in the Royal Flying Corps (RFC).

Brown's adopted father later took him to see the 1936 Olympics in Berlin.

Hermann Göring had recently announced the existence of the Luftwaffe, and Brown and his father met and were invited to join social gatherings by members of the newly disclosed organisation.

At one of these meetings, Ernst Udet, a former First World War fighter ace, was fascinated to make the acquaintance of Brown senior, a former RFC pilot, and offered to take his son Eric up flying with him.

Eric eagerly accepted the German's offer and after his arrival at the appointed airfield at Halle, he was soon flying in a two-seat Bücker Jungmann.

He recalled the incident nearly 80 years later on the BBC radio programme Desert Island Discs, "You talk about aerobatics – we did every one I think and I was hanging on to my tummy. So, when we landed, and he gave me the fright of my life because we approached upside-down and then he rolled out just in time to land, he said to me as I got out of the cockpit, slapped me between the shoulder-blades, and gave me the old WW1 fighter pilots' greeting, Hals- und Beinbruch, which means broken neck and broken legs but that was their greeting. But he said to me, you'll make a fine fighter pilot – do me two favours: learn to speak German fluently and learn to fly."

During the 1936 Summer Olympic Games, Brown witnessed Hitler shaking hands with Jesse Owens.

During this visit he met and got to know Reitsch, whom he had also briefly met in 1936.

In 1937, Brown left the Royal High School and entered the University of Edinburgh, studying modern languages with an emphasis on German.

While there, he joined the university's air unit and received his first formal flying instruction.

In February 1938, he returned to Germany under the sponsorship of the Foreign Office, having been invited to attend the 1938 Automobile Exhibition by Udet, by then a Luftwaffe major general.

He there saw the demonstration of the Focke-Wulf Fw 61 helicopter flown by Hanna Reitsch before a small crowd inside the Deutschlandhalle.

In the meantime, Brown had been selected to take part as an exchange student at the Schule Schloss Salem, located on the banks of Lake Constance, and it was while there in Germany that Brown was woken up with a loud knocking on his door one morning in September 1939.

Upon opening the door he was met by a woman with the announcement that "our countries are at war".

Soon afterwards, Brown was arrested by the SS.

However, after three days' incarceration, they merely escorted Brown in his MG Magnette sports car to the Swiss border, saying they were allowing him to keep the car because they "had no spares for it".

On returning to a United Kingdom then at war, he joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve as a Fleet Air Arm pilot, where he was posted to 802 Naval Air Squadron, initially serving on the first escort carrier, HMS Audacity (D10), converted and thus named in July 1941.

He flew one of the carrier's Grumman Martlets.

During his service on board Audacity he shot down two Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor maritime patrol aircraft, using head-on attacks to exploit the blind spot in their defensive armament.

Audacity was torpedoed and sunk on 21 December 1941 by the GS U-751, commanded by Gerhard Bigalk.

The first rescue ship left because of warnings of a nearby U-boat, and Brown was left in the sea overnight with a dwindling band of survivors, until he was rescued the next day.

He was the one of two of the 24 to survive hypothermia; the rest succumbed to the cold.

Of the complement of 480, 407 survived,

The loss of life was such that 802 Squadron was disbanded until February 1942.

On 10 March 1942, Brown was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for his service on Audacity, in particular "For bravery and skill in action against Enemy aircraft and in the protection of a Convoy against heavy and sustained Enemy attacks".

Following the loss of Audacity, Brown resumed operational flying, being seconded to Royal Canadian Air Force (RCAF) squadrons flying escort operations to USAAF Boeing B-17 Flying Fortress bombers over France.

His job was to train them in deck-landing techniques, though the training took place on airfields.

As a form of quid pro quo he joined them on fighter operations.

this time to perform experimental flying, including batting in the much more experienced Admiralty Test Pilot Lieutenant Commander Roy Sydney Baker-Falkner flying the experimental Fairey Barracuda onto the deck of a carrier in the Clyde.

Almost immediately he was transferred to Southern Italy to evaluate captured Regia Aeronautica and Luftwaffe aircraft.

This Brown did with almost no tuition, information having to be gleaned from whatever documents were available.

On completion of these duties, his commander, being impressed with his performance, sent him back to the RAE with the recommendation that he be employed in the Aerodynamics Flight department at Farnborough.

During the first month in the Flight, Brown flew 13 aircraft types, including a captured Focke-Wulf Fw 190.