Eric 'Winkle' Brown was honoured by his country. He received an MBE during the war, was upgraded to OBE shortly after the war and was more recently upgraded to CBE. Knighthoods are more sparingly handed out now than during the ridiculous period of the Blair years when anybody who was thought to be popular who had achieved some success in their field was handed a knighthood (or a damehood) in an attempt to make the honours system popular and "relevant". Today, the populist tendency is resisted by the body that administers the system, which is why Andy Murray has not been knighted in spite of Cameron's call for one after he won Wimbledon. Also, today a knighthood is the highest honour whereas in the past a life peerage was the highest ( as in Lord Olivier etc.). Today life peerages are exclusively a political award for people who are going to sit in the House of Lords.