Captain Eric Melrose "Winkle" Brown, CBE, DSC, AFC, Hon FRAeS[1] (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.

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,[7] and offered to take his son Eric up flying with him.

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.

[17] While at Farnborough as chief naval test pilot, Brown was involved in the deck landing trials of the de Havilland Sea Mosquito, the heaviest aircraft yet flown from a British carrier.

However the tests flown by Brown and his colleagues also gave a Mach number for the Mustang of 0.78, resulting in Doolittle being able to argue with his superiors for the Mustang to be chosen in preference to the P-38 and P-47 for all escort duties from then on,[20] which was available in growing numbers by very early 1944; for Doolittle's eventual move to air supremacy missions permitting the fighters to fly up to 75–100 miles ahead of the bomber combat box formations, instead of requiring them to remain with the bombers at all times.

On arrival, they found the American mechanics assembling the machines, and when Brown asked the master sergeant in charge about himself and Martindale being taught to fly them, he was handed a "large orange-coloured booklet" with the retort; "Whaddya mean, bud?

[24] On 4 April, Brown added another "first" to his logbook when engaged in trials in relation to the flexible deck concept with HMS Pretoria Castle, in which he was supposed to make landing approaches to the escort carrier in a Bell Airacobra, which had been modified with a tail hook.

[25] With the end of the European war in sight, the RAE prepared itself to acquire German aeronautical technology and aircraft before it was either accidentally destroyed or taken by the Soviets, and, because of his skills in the language, Brown was made the commanding officer of "Operation Enemy Flight".

He expected to arrive at a liberated aerodrome, just after it had been taken by the British Army; however, German resistance to the Allied advance meant that the ground forces had been delayed and the airfield was still an operational Luftwaffe base.

Subsequently, Brown and Martindale, along with several other members of the Aerodynamics Flight and assisted by a co-operative German pilot, later ferried twelve Ar 234s across the North Sea and on to Farnborough.

[27] Agreeing to do so, he soon interviewed Josef Kramer and Irma Grese, and remarked upon the experience by saying that; "Two more loathsome creatures it is hard to imagine" and further describing the latter as "... the worst human being I have ever met."

[30] Brown flight-tested all three of the German jet designs to see front-line action in the war: the Messerschmitt Me 262A Schwalbe and the Arado Ar 234B Blitz, both these types powered by twin Junkers Jumo 004 engines, and the single-engined BMW 003-powered Heinkel He 162A Spatz turbojet combat aircraft.

[4] Brown was using Himmler's personal aircraft, a specially converted Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor that had been captured and was being used by the RAE Flight based at the former Luftwaffe airfield at Schleswig.

[38] If the Ministry of Supply had proceeded with Ralph Smith's V2-based Megaroc sub-orbital manned spacecraft, Brown would also have been the leading candidate for its projected 1949 first crewed spaceflight.

It was only when attempting the tests from the same height as de Havilland, 4,000 ft, that he discovered that in a Mach 0.88 dive from that altitude the aircraft suffered from a high-g pitch oscillation at several hertz (Hz).

[41] He believed that he survived the test flight partly because he was a shorter man, de Havilland having suffered a broken neck possibly due to the violent oscillation.

[45] On 12 August 1949, he was testing the third of three Saunders-Roe SR.A/1 jet-powered flying-boat fighter prototypes, TG271, when he struck submerged debris, which resulted in the aircraft sinking in the Solent off Cowes, Isle of Wight.

[51] In the 1950s during the Korean War, Brown was seconded as an exchange officer for two years to Naval Air Station Patuxent River, Maryland, US where he flew a number of American aircraft, including 36 types of helicopter.

In January 1952, it was while at Patuxent River that Brown demonstrated the steam catapult to the Americans, flying a Grumman Panther off the carrier HMS Perseus while the ship was tied up to the dock at the Philadelphia Naval Yard.

Training was conducted initially in the UK on Hawker Sea Hawks and Fairey Gannets, and during this time Brown was allocated a personal Percival Pembroke aircraft by the Marineflieger, which, to his surprise, the German maintenance personnel took great pride in.

In his book Wings on My Sleeve, Brown records his admiration of his colleagues:- I was fortunate to have such fine C.O.s as Alan Hards, Dick Ubee, Silyn Roberts and Allen Wheeler.

It was always a thrill to me to meet and talk flying business with men like Geoffrey Tyson, Harald Penrose, Jeffrey Quill, Mutt Summers, Bill Pegg and George Errington.

[58]Brown goes on to mention the pilot of the first jet flight in Britain, Gerry Sayer, then the aircraft designers R. J. Mitchell (designer of the Spitfire), Sir Sydney Camm, R. E. Bishop, Roy Chadwick and Joe Smith, followed by the names of what he describes as "boffins and boffinettes", which include the brilliant aerodynamicists Morien Morgan, Handel Davies, Dai Morris and P. A. Hufton, and the "boffinettes" like aerodynamicist Gwen Alston, Anne Burns (structural engineer), Dorothy Pearse (aircraft engineer) and Pauline Gower (head of the women's section of the Air Transport Auxiliary (ATA).

[citation needed] Brown's last credits mention Lewis Boddington, Dr. Thomlinson, John Noble and Charles Crowfoot, whom he records (with "others") as being responsible for "giving the Royal Navy a technical lead in aircraft carrier equipment which it still holds to this day [1978]."

"[59] Brown wrote several books about his experiences, including ones describing the flight characteristics of the various aircraft he flew and an autobiography, Wings on My Sleeve, first published in 1961 and considerably updated in later editions.

[60] Flight review highlights in this series have included the following types: As regards his preferences Brown states: My favourite in the piston engine (era) is the de Havilland Hornet.

[66] His last flight as a pilot was in 1994, but in 2015 he was still lecturing and regularly attending the British Rocketry Oral History Programme (BROHP), where the annual presentation of the Sir Arthur Clarke Awards takes place.

This was presented to him by the patron, the Duke of Edinburgh at the annual reception held at St James's Palace "for his amazing flying achievements and involvement with aviation during a remarkable lifetime.

[75][76] His funeral was a private ceremony at Surrey and Sussex Crematorium, in Crawley, where mourners included the First Sea Lord Admiral Sir George Zambellas and other military representatives.