yes, he set course west at 30,000 or so then failed to respond.As you probably know, the drogue fired and dragged him through the canopy - the parachute was shredded by the temperature probe on the fin.
I was a technical photographer at Dunsfold, saw the a/c being rolled out as I left for home, thought 'that looks good' as it was one of the first in paint.
Taylor's last words to the groundcrew were, "what a lovely evening".
The real reason the drogue fired was never established, they came up with an idea Taylor may have lowered his seat onto a fallen wander lamp, hitting the firing mechanism, but this proved almost impossible to replicate ( I was photographer on the Board of Enquiry ). Other theories were that the new oxygen system failed, he became hypoxic and grabbed manual separation instead of seat oxygen, but A, a test pilot of Taylor's quality doing that ? B, The OBOGs failing, and C,the Man.sep. only worked if ejection had already been tried.
It was found that the interlock was ineffective on the new Mk12 seats, and man. sep. Could work independently, but that still presumes several system failures.
BAe tried to call it pilot error to save paying his widow ! She won, after a long, bitter & unecessary battle.This was the accountant face of BAe, certainly not Dunsfold.
His family were not even aware of the small memorials now at the 'field & in the local pub - they are coming to see sometime.