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Discover the daring life story and astonishing adventures of Captain Eric 'Winkle' Brown - Britain's greatest-ever pilot MARITIME MEDIA AWARDS BEST BOOK NOMINEE. Small in stature but immense in reputation and talent, there was more to Eric 'Winkle' Brown than met the eye.
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- Paul Beaver
Sep 17, 2023 · Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown is the most decorated Navy pilot in history, a phenomenal talent who flew 487 types of aircraft and even interrogated the Beast of Belsen.
- Journalist
Jun 6, 2023 · On the occasion of the publication of his new biography of legendary test pilot and record holder, Captain Eric Melrose ‘Winkle’ Brown, CBE, DSC, AFC, FRAeS, RN, author and historian PAUL BEAVER FRAeS gives an insight into the research of WINKLE – the Extraordinary Life of Britain’s Greatest Pilot and separating fact from fiction.
- He Rode in A ‘Wall of Death’ Stunt – with A Real Lion
- He Was A Fluent German Speaker, and Interrogated Himmler and Göring
- His Fellow Pilots Nicknamed Him ‘Winkle’
- He Was One of Two People to Survive The Sinking of HMS Audacity
- He Tested Experimental Nazi Planes
- Brown Flew More Aircraft Than Anyone Else in History
Having been born in Leith, near Edinburgh, Brown went on to become a student at Edinburgh University studying modern languages – with an emphasis on German. While there, he became a stuntman rider to earn extra money. One of his more memorable feats was his ride in a ‘wall of death’ with a lion in his motorbike sidecar.
In 1939, Brown was an exchange student at Schule Schloss Salem and became fluent in German. One September morning in 1939, he was woken up with loud knocking on his door and told, “our countries are at war”. Soon afterwards, the SS arrested Brown, imprisoned him for 3 days, then escorted him to the Swiss border in his MG Magnette sports car where h...
Brown received his affectionate nickname ‘Winkle’ (short for ‘Periwinkle’) from his Royal Navy colleagues, due to his short stature of 5ft 7in. However, Brown partly attributed his survival of dangerous incidents to his ability to “curl himself up in the cockpit”.
Brown was a member of the 802 squadron aboard the aircraft carrier HMS Audacitywhen it was torpedoed on 21 December 1941 by a German U-boat. Only Brown and a fellow pilot survived. Brown attributed this to the buoyancy of his larger ‘Mae West’ lifejacket which kept him and his fellow pilot upright in the Bay of Biscay’s cold waters. Other squadron ...
During the war, the Nazis developed a variety of experimental aircraft – including several powered by jets and one by a rocket. Brown was one of the only non-German pilots to make extensive test-flights in planes like the Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet, the world’s only rocket-powered plane in operational service. Brown also tested all three of the Naz...
During his flying career, Brown flew 487 different types of aircraft– many of them as a test pilot, when the designs were still mostly experimental and thus potentially very dangerous. (For comparison, today’s test pilots average fewer than 100 flights – any number over 50 is considered substantial). Not only did Brown not have the benefit of high-...
- Amy Irvine
Discover the daring life story and astonishing adventures of Captain Eric 'Winkle' Brown - Britain's greatest-ever pilot MARITIME MEDIA AWARDS BEST BOOK NOMINEE. Small in stature but immense in reputation and talent, there was more to Eric 'Winkle' Brown than met the eye.
Jun 21, 2023 · Eric Brown – nicknamed ‘Winkle’ during his Fleet Air Arm days – was an extremely bold pilot, reckless even, often in the line of duty but also sometimes just because he could. And yet he survived crashes and other incidents to carry on to the ripe old age of 97, thoroughly living up to the accolade of Britain’s Greatest Pilot.
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Jun 2, 2023 · That was Eric Brown, the super-competitive, maverick Scottish aviator who will go down in history as the world’s greatest test pilot. Brown flew 487 types of aircraft, more than any other...
