The Economist published a very good obituary:
Know your enemy | The Economist
Obituary: Eric “Winkle” Brown
Know your enemy
...Captain Brown’s career. In the course of it he flew 487 different types of aircraft, most of them prototypes. He changed planes so often that he kept a loose-leaf folder, meticulously handwritten, of all the different cockpit layouts, hydraulics and emergency drills, to try to keep on top of things. Many of these craft he operated on aircraft-carriers; he clocked up 2,407 carrier landings and 2,721 take-offs, both world records. He tested the earliest helicopters, jets and rocket-powered machines. His working life took him from the wood-and-canvas craft in which he started with the Fleet Air Arm, to overseeing training on the nuclear strike force at Lossiemouth in the 1960s. The rising arc of power and accuracy was so steep that it astonished him.
...accidents were ten a penny. He survived for two reasons: he was careful, and he was small. Small enough to curl up in a cockpit, rather than get his legs sheared off [during ejection]. Hence “Winkle”...