While not military related but to add to the comments about the Duke of Edinburgh's interest in technology. He was apparently responsible for the building of the Auster Agricola topdressing aircraft.
The story goes that after Queen Elizabeth and he visited New Zealand in the late 1950's and had seen Tiger Moths being used as topdressing aircraft Prince Philip went to Auster and asked/told them to build a purpose built topdressing aircraft for use in the Antipodes.