This evening I went to a talk given by Captain Eric ‘ Winkle’ Brown. What a great evening and what a great man.
Amongst other things, he has made 2,407 aircraft carrier landings in fixed wing aircraft along with 2,721 catapult launches.
This should be a good talking point. He gave his top three fighter aircraft of World War 2. Want to guess ? If anyone guesses right, give yourself a pat on the back !
By: JDK - 7th April 2004 at 11:22
I’ve not heard him talk, much to my regret, but all his books are worth having (nay, essential) for “was a better than b?” arguments.
Here’s the man in front of Evelyn Tentions at Duxford in the early 90s.
Books:
Wings of the Luftwaffe 1 & 2
Wings of the Navy 1 & 2
Testing for Combat
Wings on my Sleeve
By: Eric Mc - 7th April 2004 at 07:55
I wasn’t a million miles out.
To be honest, I’ve read a few of his books so maybe there was something buried in the dim recesses of my memory somewhere that I could just about dredge up.
His book on flying the Luftwaffe stuff at Farnborough is really good.
By: aero51 - 7th April 2004 at 07:29
Here are the answers. Who am I to argue …..
3. Mustang Mk4
2. FW190-D9
1. Spitfire 14
By: Corsair166b - 6th April 2004 at 23:16
As I recall, Eric is very fond of the Grumman F4F and NOT so fond of the F4U…but I doubt he mentioned either. As I also recall, he was given an early F4U to test and it still had all the early production bugs in it…I wonder how he would have rated a later dash 4 model…I bet he would have liked it!
Glad to hear the old boy is still around…
Mark
By: Eric Mc - 6th April 2004 at 23:09
Spitfire Mk IX
P-51D
Fw-190D
??????????????
By: aero51 - 6th April 2004 at 22:50
How about Marks ?
By: Eric Mc - 6th April 2004 at 22:48
Not in any particular order –
Supermarine Spitfire
North American P-51 Mustang
Focke Wulf Fw190
Am I close?
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April 6, 2004 at 10:46 pm