Go Back  PPRuNe Forums > Other Aircrew Forums > Flight Testing
Reload this Page >

Aviators Extraordinary

Wikiposts
Search
Flight Testing A forum for test pilots, flight test engineers, observers, telemetry and instrumentation engineers and anybody else involved in the demanding and complex business of testing aeroplanes, helicopters and equipment.

Aviators Extraordinary

Thread Tools
 
Search this Thread
 
Old 19th Feb 2007, 19:23
  #21 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: scotland
Posts: 93
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Here are a few more to the list that i have identified, well done to John for adding the ETPS courses as well, thats excellent

REAR ROW FROM LEFT

1 DAVID LOCKSPEISER
2 GEOFF WORRALL
3 NEVILLE DUKE No 4 Course ETPS 1946
4 ERIC BUCKLOW
5 BOB THOMPSON
6 MICHAEL TURNER
7 GEORGE AIRD
8
9 BRIAN WILBY
10
11 DAVE SOUTHWOOD 44 ETPS 1985
12 CLIVE RUSTIN 20 ETPS 1961
13
14
15 SIR CHARLES MASEFIELD
16
17 JOCK REID 30 ETPS 1971
18 DUNCAN SIMPSON
19 ALISTAIR CHRISTIE 14 ETPS 1955
20 JOHN FARLEY 22 ETPS 1963
21 CHRIS ROBERTS 36 ETPS 1977
22 ERIC BROWN
23 ROY RADFORD 18 ETPS 1959
24 W.J. HANCOCK
25 RALPH KOHN


FRONT ROW FROM LEFT

1 ROY MOXAM 18 ETPS 1959
2 JOHN FAIREY
3 ALAN SMITH
4 SOX HOSEGOOD
5 MIKE OLIVER
6 VIC LOCKWOOD 34 ETPS 1975
7 MIKE GOODFELLOW 16 ETPS 1957
8
9 JIMMY DELL
10
11
12 ALAN BAVIN
13 LEN HOUSTON
14 BRIAN POWELL
15 MALCOM MUIR
16 JOHN ALLAM
17 DICK WHITTINGTON 9 ETPS 1950
18 HARRY RAYNER
19
20 PETER BAKER 12 ETPS 1953
21 GEOFF CAIRNS 15 ETPS 1956
22 NICHOLAS GOODHART
23 PETER AYERST
24 KEN WALLIS
25 DICKIE MARTIN 4 ETPS 1946
26 TONY BLACKMAN 13 ETPS 1954
27 DESMOND PENROSE 17 ETPS 1958
28 PETER HENLEY
29 TOMMY THOMPSON
30 SIR DAVID EVANS
31 REGGIE SPIERS 14 ETPS 1955
32 ROGER TOPP 10 ETPS 1951
33 JACK SHERBURN
34 ALEX HENSHAW

Cheers
Neil
the_tartanterror is offline  
Old 19th Feb 2007, 21:08
  #22 (permalink)  
Thread Starter
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Canberra Australia
Posts: 1,300
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
9 famous names to go.

Perhaps we can add to the value of the list by one liners describing the major achievments of each.

Alex Henshaw - Production and experimental flight tests on most of the Spitfires produced.

John Farley - tell us yourself John.

MC
Milt is offline  
Old 20th Feb 2007, 10:44
  #23 (permalink)  
Moderator
 
Join Date: Apr 2001
Location: various places .....
Posts: 7,185
Received 94 Likes on 63 Posts
.. just about makes us mere mortal folks want to go and sit in a dark corner for a week or so ...
john_tullamarine is offline  
Old 20th Feb 2007, 19:21
  #24 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Mar 2003
Location: U.K.
Posts: 615
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Milt,

I was so lucky to attend the re-union at Boscombe back in '93. Purely as a guest. It was probably the most privileged experience of my life seeing TP's that I had read about and whose experiences I had marvelled at let alone their displays at Farnborough in years gone by.
The banter was just amazing - such fertile minds, but I guess you had to have same to not only survive but also to deal with what then were somewhat frequent tragedies and friends lost.

The modern travelling public owe so much to those of you whose testing has made modern air travel so safe & reliable.
GK430 is offline  
Old 20th Feb 2007, 20:48
  #25 (permalink)  
Thread Starter
 
Join Date: Oct 2003
Location: Canberra Australia
Posts: 1,300
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
John Tullamarine - our worthy Moderator

Come out of your dark corner.
Some of us know that you could have been on the list had you attended Popham.
Milt is offline  
Old 22nd Feb 2007, 08:32
  #26 (permalink)  
Per Ardua ad Astraeus
 
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: UK
Posts: 18,579
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Just a 'minimal' couple of paras on John in the link to his Harrier lecture, Milt.

Eternal memories of watching his Farnborough Harrier 'manoeuvres' - and the pleasure of seeing him again just before Christmas + Duncan Simpson the year before.

A great thread here with outstanding people.
BOAC is offline  
Old 25th Feb 2007, 16:47
  #27 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Aug 2002
Location: northants
Posts: 205
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
From another forum

It is with great sadness that I post on the Forum that Alex Henshaw died in his sleep last night. He was 94 and looking forward, as ever, at new projects. Michael Turner and I were with him on Thursday and he was in excellent spirits, apart from his great concern for one of his beloved dogs (Purdey) who was under the weather.
Alex was one of the greatest pilots of all time. His pre-war record breaking flights have gone down in history and some of them will never be broken. His remarkable wartime career with Vickers Supermarine, flying Spitfires, Lancasters and other types as required made him a legend. He never lost his love for flying and was delighted when he was able to fly in the two-seat Spitfire, which he took control of once airborne, on more than one occasion recently.
Alex Henshaw will always be remembered by all aviation minded people.
We send our deepest sympathy to his son Alex Jnr and his family.
The funeral will be family only. Please respect Alex's wishes.

Only met him once, a real gent,
yakker is offline  
Old 25th Feb 2007, 19:27
  #28 (permalink)  

Do a Hover - it avoids G
 
Join Date: Oct 1999
Location: Chichester West Sussex UK
Age: 91
Posts: 2,206
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts


R.I.P.
John Farley is offline  
Old 25th Feb 2007, 23:14
  #29 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jan 2003
Location: Manchester
Posts: 323
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
I never knew the gentleman, but just look at the glint in his eye! He looks like a right chracter. RIP

Rgds Dr I
Dr Illitout is offline  
Old 10th Apr 2007, 12:47
  #30 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jul 2003
Location: ex Brooklands now Shropshire
Age: 62
Posts: 129
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
SQ Ldr Neville Duke

Sadly being reported elsewhere;
Neville Duke passed away on Saturday 7th April He died in Hospital after landing at Popham and collasped shortly after.
My condolences to His Wife and Family..
Nik
We will miss him at Dunsfold.

I placed this sad information here due to the thread content.

Last edited by m5dnd; 10th Apr 2007 at 20:01. Reason: added text
m5dnd is offline  
Old 10th Apr 2007, 17:44
  #31 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Mar 2000
Location: UK
Posts: 5,197
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Neville Duke LINK
Heliport is offline  
Old 11th Apr 2007, 06:12
  #32 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jul 2005
Location: scotland
Posts: 93
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
I was very sad to learn that Neville Duke passed away on Saturday.

He was truly one of the great British Pilots and such a gentleman.He always made time to answer my questions and offer information and encouragement to my Test Pilot Tribute site. It was an honour to have known such a wonderful,modest and sincere gentleman.

I received a letter from Neville 2 weeks ago, thanking me for sending him copies of the signed Dinner Menu and cartoon from the Royal Aero Club dinner in 1954 which honoured his World Speed Record. He said he was very pleased to take a trip down memory lane,and reminisced about that evening.

My thoughts go out to his family and friends

Neil
the_tartanterror is offline  
Old 3rd May 2007, 18:25
  #33 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: UK
Posts: 1,914
Received 4 Likes on 2 Posts
Sadly we've lost another - Jimmy Harrison

I was very sad to learn that we have lost yet another 'Aviator Extraordinary'.

Former AVRO CTP, Jimmy Harrison, died on the 16th April 2007.

Link to his Obituary
spekesoftly is online now  
Old 8th May 2007, 13:48
  #34 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: May 2006
Location: 2 m South of Radstock VRP
Posts: 2,042
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Sorry about the late Post but I've just returned from a long weekend away. Very sad news about one of my childhood heroes.

Not wishing to detract from the spirit of the obituary, I regret that the drafting journo could have been more factually correct. The only Vulcan I can recall being lost in the circumstances described,
Taking off from Avro's Woodford aerodrome, near Stockport in July 1957 Harrison lost all control at 200ft, due to a total electrical failure, with no hope of being able to land safely. One of his crew, Bob Hodgson, now 88, described to me how Harrison skilfully nursed the aircraft up to 16,000ft to provide them with time to escape, before ejecting himself. The Vulcan then crashed harmlessly on a Yorkshire farm. "We owe our lives," said Hodgson, "entirely to his skill and knowledge of the aircraft."
, was XA891. That was July 1959, though, and surely the interviewed crew member would have been Bob Pogson.
GOLF_BRAVO_ZULU is offline  
Old 15th May 2007, 20:53
  #35 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jan 2005
Location: France
Posts: 2,315
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
The world is too big, and life is too short....
With Jim Harrison, yet somebody else is gone, that I would have liked to meet over a pint, or maybe hear a lecture from.
Has somebody written a biography of him?
ChristiaanJ is offline  
Old 2nd Oct 2007, 18:04
  #36 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Aug 2001
Location: UK
Posts: 1,914
Received 4 Likes on 2 Posts
ChristiaanJ,

There's an excellent article on Jimmy Harrison's career in the November edition of 'Aeroplane' magazine, writen by former colleague and friend Tony Blackman.


G_B_Z,

The article also mentions the incident with XA891, and confirms your comment about the date - 24 July 1959.
spekesoftly is online now  
Old 31st Jul 2009, 12:51
  #37 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Jul 2009
Location: Camberley
Posts: 1
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
Popham Photograph

This is a very late post because I have only just discovered the Forum.
For m5dnd's benefit, The ETPS info is not wrong: ETPS never had any info on Duncan Simpson because Duncan was never a student at the school!
Nugget12 is offline  
Old 26th Jul 2012, 18:28
  #38 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Oct 2001
Location: Frankfurt/Main
Age: 81
Posts: 296
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
J. B. 'Tommy' Thompson

It's my sad duty to inform you that Tommy passed away on Tuesday, July the 24th after a fight with cancer that prevented his getting up for the past six-odd weeks. He would have been 91 in September.

Tommy will be remembered most recently for having flown restored Seafire SX336 on her maiden flight ('Seafire flies again'), but for a detailed account of his wartime career please refer here: PORTSMOUTH MEMORIES

Tommy's funeral will take place at Portchester Crematorium on August the 7th at 12 noon.

My deepest sympathy goes to his wife Joan, his family, and many friends.

R.I.P. Tommy

Last edited by atb1943; 14th May 2021 at 19:17. Reason: To update the link
atb1943 is offline  
Old 28th Mar 2014, 07:35
  #39 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Apr 2002
Posts: 587
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
David Lockspeiser RIP

Forwarded message:

"David has flown his last flight. He died on Sunday March 23rd peacefully at home with us at his side and other family members nearby.

David had been battling pulmonary fibrosis for several years. Thanks to his fighting spirit and excellent care he lived longer and better than expected. By last Sunday the time had come for him to use the ejector seat.

The funeral will be held at 1.30pm on Wednesday April 9th at Aldershot Crematorium, Guildford Rd, Aldershot, Hampshire GU12 4BP and will followed by a gathering nearby.

No flowers please. Those wishing to may make a donation to the RAF Benevolent Fund here or by sending a cheque to them at 67 Portland Place, London W1B 1AR.

David had a wide network of friends and contacts and pursued his interests through several organisations and clubs. Please feel free to forward this email to others who may like to know."
PPRuNeUser0139 is offline  
Old 30th May 2014, 13:22
  #40 (permalink)  
 
Join Date: Dec 2006
Location: Bury St. Edmunds
Age: 64
Posts: 539
Likes: 0
Received 0 Likes on 0 Posts
David's obit from today's Daily Telegraph

David Lockspeiser - obituary - Telegraph

I remember meeting David (and as a 15 year old) sitting in the cockpit of the LDA01 at Farnborough when Dickie Martin was doing some test flying. A fantastic day for an aviation-mad teenager!

MB
Madbob is offline  


Contact Us - Archive - Advertising - Cookie Policy - Privacy Statement - Terms of Service

Copyright © 2024 MH Sub I, LLC dba Internet Brands. All rights reserved. Use of this site indicates your consent to the Terms of Use.