Posted on 07/22/2016 3:49:28 AM PDT by Winniesboy
Eric 'Winkle' Brown helped liberate Belsen, interrogated Goering - and test-piloted more planes than anyone on earth... This was not so much a flying display as a roll call of aviation history: Vampire, Sea Vixen, Martlet, Mustang, Tiger Moth, MiG, Hurricane, Lancaster... swooped in tribute to one of the greatest aviators the world has known. No one will ever surpass the records set by Brown, who flew more types of aircraft than anyone: 487.
During a long career in which he was torpedoed, helped liberate Belsen, interrogated Goering, survived 11 crashes, landed the first jet on an aircraft carrier and set the world record for carrier landings, Capt Brown won admirers all over the world...
Following his death at the age of 97, his friends had spent months rounding up as many different aircraft as they could for yesterday's memorial service-cum-display. Around 50 of them were on show .. just a tenth of what he flew between 1939 and 1970. If it had wings, Eric would be asked to fly it.
Hence the appearance of the RAF's last surviving Lancaster. Capt Brown was one of only two pilots who managed to roll a Lancaster — 'a four-engine Spitfire' — while testing G-forces for RAF boffins. Having been in charge of capturing enemy planes towards the end of the war, he ended up flying more Luftwaffe aircraft than almost any German pilot, even surviving a flight in a lethal rocket plane.
From the old Soviet stable came a Yak-3 and a MiG-15. After the war, Britain sent him on a diplomatic mission to fly with the U.S. Navy....
The U.S. would try very hard, in vain, to surpass his world record of more than 2,000 aircraft carrier take-offs and landings. To this day, no one has ever come close.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
From my understanding American pilots including the WWII Aces said that Bob Hoover was the greatest pilot ever
I had the opportunity to talk with Bob Hoover at Oshkosh a few years back (maybe 1996?)...what a hell of a guy! Down to earth, congenial, wearing his famous straw hat...:) Talk about guts...stealing a FW-190 and flying the thing through skies filled with thousands of young American pilots looking to wax the ass of a real German plane, and ask questions later!
And he flew the living crap out of that Shrike Commander, what a show he put on!
I must say, that I thought (unfairly, as I have come to judge myself) at the time that Chuck Yeager came across as a real jerk. We engaged him in light conversation, and he was the polar opposite. I never thought less of him as a patriot, pilot, and basic interesting guy, but I didn’t think much of him as a person.
Over time though, I came to believe I had judged Gen. Yeager unfairly. He had a completely different prism to view the public through than someone like Hoover did, and I did not take that into account at all. I do regret feeling that way.
As for Eric Brown, if someone said he was the greatest pilot ever, I don’t think I would argue much with them.
Amazing gentleman! We’re losing these guys too soon.
I was in VA-46 back in the Mid-Seventies, and we had a young pilot with us who eventually became the all time leader in the US Navy in carrier traps with 1,645. His Name was Lt. John Leenhouts. Considerably less the Eric Brown, but quite impressive in our Navy. He was a grand guy, treated us enlisted personnel with great respect, and was viewed as one of the most conscientious and professional pilots, even as a young Ltjg, and when we were training, would point him out to our young Plane Captain trainees as he did his pre-flight inspections and say “See how he is doing it? Your pilots should be doing it just like he is...that is the way it should be done.” Everyone who has worked in aviation knows there are some pilots who go through the routine, and some who DO the routine. He was the latter, even as a young pilot. He flew A-7s, and was the first pilot who cross-trained to the F-14. I recall he became a test pilot (I think officially certified, which allowed him to wear an orange flight suit) and as I recall, he took much good-natured heat and ribbing for doing just that!
I found this clip on the Internet:
With 10 major deployments to his credit, Captain “Lites” Leenhouts has logged over 10,000 hours piloting more than 35 different types of military, antique and civilian aircraft and has become the all time leading Carrier Aviator having accumulated 1,645 traps on 16 different aircraft carriers. Additionally, Captain Leenhouts has exceeded 10,000 aerial photographs and is published world wide. His awards include the Legion of Merit (2 awards), Distinguished Flying Cross with Combat “V” (2 awards), Meritorious Service Medal, Individual Air Medal with Combat “V” (4 awards), 2 Strike Flight Air Medals with Combat “V”, Joint Service Commendation Medal, Navy Commendation Medal with Combat “V” (2 awards), as well as various other individual, unit and expeditionary awards.
He apparently led the first carrier strike in Operation Desert Storm.
Hai, yeah, read about him on the Daily Mail.
Ping for later.
We dohn need no stingging Netflix!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEe5ul37Q7g
About an hour long, no ad either.
He was what could be called a “technical pilot”, because he truly understood aircraft, as opposed to some of the deadly combat pilots, like “Pappy” Boyington and Joe Foss, who were ‘angels of death’ in their aircraft.
Technical pilots are a rarer breed, and extraordinarily valuable. Combat pilots win battles, but technical pilots win wars. There are also tactical pilots, like John Thach, creator of the famous “Thach weave”.
It should also be mentioned that the Germans had a combat pilot, Hans-Ulrich Rudel, who was so experienced that he became a technical pilot, many of his ideas being integrated into the Thunderbolt II “Warthog”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Brown_(pilot)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pappy_Boyington
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joe_Foss
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Thach
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thach_Weave
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans-Ulrich_Rudel
That was probably where I saw it then.
WOW! Thanks for the post; link.
Condolences to family and friends of Eric Brown. R.I.P., sir. Thanks.
love
God rest his soul, hoping his last flight is a good one.
Not air-to-air, as he flew the slow Stuka, but by the sheer number of missions flown, being shot at on every mission. Had numerous crashes, lost a leg in one and was back flying a month later.
At one point he was ordered grounded by Hitler, so as not to allow the Russians a chance to kill a national hero, but he disobeyed the order.
An excellent write-up on an astounding man.
Perhaps my favorite anecdote is this one:
By the time [Capt. Brown] was 28, he had been to the Palace so many times to be decorated that, on the fourth occasion, King George VI greeted him with the words: ‘Not you again.’
He belongs to The Ages, now, but his sheer stature as a man of great prowess will promote the endurance of his memory among us for many long years to come. Wherever great pilots regale one another with great feats on the wing, the name of Captain Brown will not fail to join the conversation.
Thanks for the Ping, HK
What we would call a “fine Chap”.
Very few of those left.
(Everybody knew what happened at his funeral, and after the initial hubbub died down, his grave became a popular site for flight officers to visit.)
“Rudel died in 1982. During Rudel’s burial ceremony, two Bundeswehr F-4 Phantoms appeared to make a low altitude flypast over his grave. Although Dornhausen was situated in the middle of a flightpath regularly flown by military aircraft, Bundeswehr officers denied deliberately flying aircraft over the funeral.
“Four mourners were photographed giving Nazi salutes at the funeral, and were investigated under a law banning the display of Nazi symbols. The Federal Minister of Defense Manfred Wörner declared that the flight of the aircraft had been a normal training exercise.”
http://i.imgur.com/wHR6Abc.jpg
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