Neville Browning
 

I learned to fly as a 17 year old at the Herts & Essex Aero Club in 1964 when Neville Browning was the CFI and flew the occasional sortie with the students. I can confirm that he used to take them on the 'bread run' to Fyfield, usually by closing the throttle and saying " You've got an engine failure, what are you going to do now". Which ever field you chose, he'd say "No, pick that one" which just happened to be adjacent to the baker and the pub (where he'd have a half). The next part of the exercise was to conduct a short field takeoff which in my case meant a fast taxy 'downwind' followed by a 180 deg. handbrake turn and full throttle towards the trees at the far end of the very short field. He took my final handling test which on passing, he celebrated with a loop in our Fourney Aircoupe, it frightened me to death, since a) as the speed increased, it rattled like hell, b) the airspeed before we pulled up was in the red and c) I remembered the manual saying 'This aircraft is not cleared for aerobatics. I understood he flew Bristol Fighters in WWI and was the boss of a PR Spit squadron during WWII (I'm open to correction) Incidentally, I'm sure he would have preferred to have died quietly in bed like most people

Hi Julian.
I spent many years with Neville and was a great friend. He let me to fly his aircraft including the Zlin and Messenger which I subsequently crashed and Bu133 Jungmeister and I also had my Metasokol and Bensen gyro in his barn. On a number of occasions I was in the Zlin when we flew upside down over a number of aerodromes. I was on the airfield during an airshow in low cloud when he crashed following a loop too low and it was very sad. Later I disposed of the Zlin spares to Peter Clifford. He told me that at the end of the war he and another pilot "Borrowed" two Sopworth Pup's and flew then to Lawns his fathers farm as there was so many left on the field when the war finished. I have a photo I took in the Zlin when we were upside down and his cap which I've still got, was on the canopy roof.

Wonderful pilot who gave some amazing displays in a different era (the past is a different place!). Certainly remember the inverted Zlin routines and watched him roll CDC into a ball at Rochester in the early 60s.

Flying dragging wing over the ground was normally ok providing it was down wind. Unfortunately Neville forgot which way the wind was and therefore crashed ACDC. I was there at the time and remember jumping up and down when I saw he was dropping the wrong wing. He was taken to the hospital and when he came back was more interested in his watch than the aircraft. Unfortunatly he became somewhat forgetfull as his age rose and he made one or two mistakes. I kept telling him to be careful but being Neville he carried on hence Seething. The registration G-ACDC was transferred to another aircraft.