This morning I was re-reading some of Hummingfrog's very informative posts dating from 2014.
His father and mine were on the same course at 1BFTS ( No. 12 course), they both were then posted to Montrose on the flying instructors course, but not at the same time.
For reasons I may post about on another occasion, unlike most on the course at 1BFTS, my father was already getting in long in the tooth -- he was aged 26 when he completed the course and had previous flying experience having been trained and flown solo with the Civil Air Guard pre-war.
Reading those posts prompted me to look again at "The Course Photograph'. Seated in the centre of the front row (close to my dad) was a student named Peter Tisshaw.
I thought I would undertake a little research.
His promotion to Pilot Officer and at a later date to Flt Lt appeared together with my father's name in the London Gazette. Add to which their service numbers were sequential.
Peter Tisshaw had joined the Royal Air Force in 1941 after graduating from University. Like Hummingfrog's father and mine, he too had become a QFS.
The Gazette then records that in late 1945 he was posted on 'special duties'.
From a note written about him, in December 1945 he was posted to Turkey returning to the UK in January 1946. He then left the service and became a test pilot with Boulton Paul.
On the 3rd of February 1949, he was the observer in a prototype B.P. T2 trainer which which was under the control of B.P.'s chief test pilot. It appears that 'diving tests were being performed.
The canopy detached and the a/c hit the ground at high speed, killing both.
http://thetartanterror.********.lt/2...1923-1949.html
The attrition rate of test pilots in the late 1940's and 1950's was very high.
My father was coming under increasing pressure to join A.V. Roe as a test pilot in the late 1940's. The AAF Squadron he was flying with was closely connected to A.V. Roe. The Hon air Commodore was Sir Roy Dobson, the Chairman of A.V. Roe and my father was very good friends with the C.O. of the Squadron, who was a test pilot with A.V.R.
Tragically my father's friend was killed in 1956 when testing a prototype Shackleton.