The Extraordinary Story of Captain Winkle Brown

[wub]

Heads up.. BBC2, Sunday 1st June, 9pm. Capt. Brown tells his story with the aid of archive footage and his own personal photo collection.

[Tinribs]

I was involved in production testing post Major at Aldergrove and later some development work at Rae and so I especially appreciated W's Ras lecture at Loughborough

I was very impressed by his willingness to answer my questions demanding thought on new issues

I will be watching on Sunday and would urge others not to miss a n historic moment

[NutLoose]

Yep, he is one of those so charismatic people and has flown everything under the sun, ME163 Komet, Do355 to name a couple of the enemy aircraft he evaluated post war, heck he even did the undercarriage-less trials on the flexible carrier deck...

Your jaw will drop when you see the types he has flown, be prepared to do a bit of scrolling :D

Types flown

List of aircraft flown by Eric "Winkle" Brown - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_aircraft_flown_by_Eric_%22Winkle%22_Brown)

More details of the show here

BBC Two - Britain's Greatest Pilot: The Extraordinary Story of Captain Winkle Brown (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b045pbq2)

I am staggered he has never been knighted

[Norma Stitz]

I wonder if it'll mention when I had him in my Alfa doing 110mph along a motorway 'somewhere in the south'? Top chap, and his non-aviation exploits in Northern Europe at the end of WW2 are also worthy of respect.

[CoffmanStarter]

My good friend Dragartist will undoubtly pick-up here as I understand that Captain Brown RN gave an outstanding lecture to the Cambridge Branch of the RAeS recently ... sadly I wasn't able to attend.

[NutLoose]

Wouldn't let you in huh :p

[david parry]

Not trying to diss E WB in any way as he was a pioneer/ hero. In RN Aviation. But try this Quote. EWB was tasked to do DLPs on a carrier flying the swept wing variant of a hawker Seahawk P1052. He remarked that the average RN pilot would not be able to land a swept wing aircraft , on carriers. This held back RN aviation for some years...Was my Commander at Lossie many moons ago. He flew , all the aircraft we had on the station flight at times !!! Sea Prince ,Tiger Moth,Sea Vampire, Sea Venom, and the visiting Heron:D

[teeteringhead]

Had the privilege of sharing a glass or three with him after a RAFHS Lecture at Hendon a year or so ago.

It foreshortens history to think I was chatting with someone who had debriefed Goering at Nurenberg just before he topped himself. As a fluent German speaker and a TP, "Winkle" was the obvious choice.

Many dits about the "friendly" rivalry between Brits, Cousins and Soviets just post war, hoovering up the Luftwaffe's expertise - and hardware!

[LowObservable]

David P: To be fair, nobody had much luck with swept wings aboard carriers until the mirror landing aid, angled deck and steam cats arrived - all of them rather later than the P.1052 tests. That was also why the USN messed around with the strange and horrible F7U Cutlass and the variable-sweep XF10F-1 Jaguar.

[brokenlink]

Had the privilege of attending one of his lectures at North Weald a few years back when he recounted his career during WW2. I have never seen so may people, young and old, so completely enthralled. Regrettably I missed his last lecture in Cambridge due to work but a number of cadets and staff went and had a thoroughly momentous evening.
Agree the earlier comment on a knighthood completely.

BL.

[FODPlod]

Regarding a knighthood, isn't this something the Honourable Company of Air Pilots should be pushing for? It must possess the necessary background knowledge and clout to produce an influential citation (unless Winkle Brown has already turned one down).

When one looks at some of the recipients of peerages these days...

[A A Gruntpuddock]

Bought "Wings on my sleeve" after reading about it on Pprune - what a career!

[GreenKnight121]

LO - you ignore the very successful Grumman Cougar, which flew very safely (compared to contemporary straight-wing jets) from axial-deck hydraulic catapult carriers without mirror landing sights - its safety record was equal to that of its straight-wing half-brother, the Grumman Panther, and it was considered to have better carrier handling characteristics than the Panther.

With a first flight of 20 September 1951, and a squadron in-service date of November 1952, it preceded the F7U Cutlas and the F10F Jaguar, and was very much the P.1052 to the Panther's Sea hawk.



This is another example of Brown's ability to be wrong and have most people think he was right and reality was wrong.


Note his claim to have been the first person to land a retractable tricycle-gear propeller plane on a carrier (on 4 April 1945) - months after a PBJ-1H (USMC B-25H) and a F7F Tigercat made several arrested landings and catapulted take-offs from the carrier Shangri-La (on 15 November 1944)*!

If you ignore the "retractable" part, then he was over 5 years too late, as the XJO-3, a Lockheed Model 12 Electra fitted with fixed tricycle gear, made landings and take-offs from USS Lexington on 29 August 1939.**

In his autobiography***, Captain Brown described the circumstances thus: I had already collected a few 'firsts' in aviation, and I rather wanted to be the first pilot to put a tricycle aircraft down on a flight deck. The Airacobra was not officially cleared for such a landing, but the boffins had told me privately that it would probably take the strain.
* http://steeljawscribe.com/2007/10/05/flightdeck-friday-more-oddities
http://www.history.navy.mil/nan/backissues/1990s/1998/ja98/tigercat.pdf

** http://books.google.com/books?id=6z7quhWS-BoC&pg=PA203&lpg=PA203&dq=XJO-3&source=bl&ots=JLNJl90t7B&sig=ZPMWuHYAbSkRmbbTpmPG2V42sx0&hl=en&sa=X&ei=tjSFU5f0KImZyASngYLwAw&ved=0CFYQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=XJO-3&f=false

*** Wings On My Sleeve : The World's Greatest Test Pilot tells his Story. London: Orion Books. 2006. ISBN 978-0-297-84565-2 (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/9780297845652).

[SpazSinbad]

'GK' I'm not familiar with the stats (I guess they are on the internet). You may find this PDF a good read.

FLYING THE NAVY’S FIRST JETS (SIERRA HOTEL) By Steven Craig Reynolds
As Told By Charles “Gil” Erb, Cdr. USN (Ret.)
CHAPTER 20 WHY MODERN AIRCRAFT CARRIERS HAVE ANGLED DECKS
"...The Grumman engineers also knew that the first jet aircraft to enter the fleet would have to be compatible with the propeller driven planes in and around the carrier. They would be in the same landing pattern with the same wind conditions and land on the same carrier deck.

The jets, just like the props, would enter the pattern heading upwind and fly by the ship’s starboard (right) side at two to three hundred feet off the deck. The four-plane division would then peel off, one at a time, to establish the landing interval, and start the downwind leg. The one-hundred-eighty-degree spot was usually marked by a destroyer, a cruiser, or at times a battleship. With wheels and flaps down, and the arresting hook extended, the descending turn to a landing was started. With forty-five degrees still to turn the Landing Signal Officer (LSO) picked up the plane and with his bright orange and yellow paddles, directed the pilot to the right altitude, the right speed, and the right alignment to make the arrested landing. With a clear deck and everything in readiness on the ship, the LSO would give the “cut” signal to the pilot. Power came off instantly, the nose dropped slightly for a quick look at the deck and to set up a rate-of-descent. The wings were leveled as the stick was pulled back to establish the proper landing attitude and cushion the landing. The airplane then hit the deck and an instant passed waiting for the hook to catch a wire. When the pilot felt the strain on his shoulder straps and the airplane came to a violent stop, he was home free. As the button was pushed to retract the hook and release the airplane from the arresting gear, the pilot added full power to get out of the landing area a make room for the next plane to land. Under the direction of a flight deck crewman, he was taxied forward, parked, and climbed out of the cockpit to make his way to the ready room for the debrief.

This, of course, was all done on what now is called a straight deck carrier. The Cougar helped show the Navy the wisdom of having an angled deck carrier. A slower plane with straight wings could make a slower approach to the landing area, cut the power, lower the nose and then flare the bird to cushion the landing impact. In the supersonic cougar our approach was at a higher speed, but we still took the cut and lowered our nose. However, the swept wing gave us no flare, hence no cushioning effect. So we hit the deck with a pretty severe impact. That bounced the plane back up in the air and into a protective barricade that kept us from floating into the planes that were parked forward.

In those days the landing surface was wood supported by a steel deck. After many of these hard landings the steel deck underneath, unknown to us, had caved in and no longer supported the wood landing deck above. This created a spring-board effect that caused the planes to bounce even higher and sometimes over the barricade and into the pack of planes parked forward. They solved the immediate problem by drilling large holes through the wood and filling the void with concrete. These were serious accidents though and ultimately led to angled deck aircraft carriers."...

& from Chapter 12 this is amusingly familiar: CHAPTER 12 A “NUGGET’S” FIRST NEAR-FATAL CARRIER EXPERIENCE
"Gil was told that the exhilaration of the first landing aboard an aircraft carrier is equivalent to the first night of a honeymoon. It is his opinion that they are both pretty exciting but won’t go into much detail on the honeymoon. He tells it this way.

'We got to the ship and got in line to take turns making our
approach, and, hopefully, landing aboard ship. When my turn came,
I made a real good approach. The LSO gave me the “cut” signal. I
chopped the power, dropped the nose, and slammed heavily down
on the deck. The tail hook on the jet caught the heavy cable on the
carrier deck, and both me and the plane, came to an abrupt and violent
stop. After regaining my senses, I taxied forward...'"
http://lcweb2.loc.gov/master/afc/afc2001001/42552/pd0001.pdf (4.7Mb)

[GreenKnight121]

It was as much the increasing aircraft weights and speeds in general, nothing specific to swept wings (although the swept wings did aggravate the landing speed issue, and required adjustment to landing procedures in general.

Even after moving to angled decks the need to minimize impact force necessitated a gentler landing technique.

[gpugh]

I bought "Wings on my sleeve" for my father who had served with WB , I sent the book to him and he was kind enough to sign it for my father

[TorqueOfTheDevil]

I would absolutely love to attend one of Capt Brown's lectures but the searches I have made refer to past lectures not forthcoming events. Anyone able to provide a steer?

[SpazSinbad]

TalkofDeDebil and HIS CHAINS RATTLE (familiar flight deck refrain) so here youse go....

Highlights of a Life in Aviation Tuesday 29 July Branch Event
"Capt Eric Melrose ‘Winkle’ Brown CBE, DSC, AFC, KCVSA, PhD HonFRAeS, RN is a former test pilot who has flown 487 different types of aircraft; more than anyone else in history. He also holds the record for the most aircraft carrier landings performed (2,407) and is the Fleet Air Arm’s most decorated living pilot. Having kindly agreed to allow the use of his name for our Branch ‘named lecture’ we are delighted to announce that he will be presenting the inaugural occurrence of this annual event.

This event is free to attend but only open to those who pre-register their attendance in advance.

Contact: Lt Mark Davis, [email protected]

SPEAKERS: Capt Eric Brown RN

LOCATION Event venue: Fleet Air Arm Museum, Concorde Hall, RNAS Yeovilton"
Royal Aeronautical Society | Event | Highlights of a Life in Aviation (http://aerosociety.com/Events/Event-List/1554/Highlights-of-a-Life-in-Aviation)