The police have now confirmed the identity of the pilot who died at Shoreham. He was Brian Brown whose name will be familiar to many of those who visit this forum. He was the regular pilot of the the Real Aeroplane Company’s Hurricane and had more than 300 hours on type.
I only met Brian once but as it sadly turned out, this meeting was quite significant. I was directing a TV biography of Alex Henshaw and we were filming at Breighton with the Mew Gull and Arrow Active. Brian flew the Active for our cameras and also a Lynx helicopter which we used as a camera ship while Taff Smith flew the Mew Gull. I thought Brian was a smashing bloke and he went out of his way to make sure we got what we wanted. Our programme “The Extraordinary Mr Spitfire” was shown last night, on the very day Brian died — though we didn’t know this at the time. His name is on the credits.
Many people have used this forum to express their condolences and sympathies with Brian’s family. I’d like to add my name to the list, and we will dedicate the programme to him.

Graeme Bowd.

Alex Henshaw documentary

I was the director of “The Extraordinary Mr Spitfire” which aired on ITV yesterday (Sunday). You may like to know that a one-hour version will be shown on The History Channel at 8pm next Saturday (Sept 15) and repeated the following day at 10am. Given the time constraints it was difficult to cram everything into the the ITV version – you should find that the longer programme deals more comprehensively with his achievements. I met him several times and he was one of my heroes, so I was very pleased when we got the commission to make this biography.
Someone asked if a video of Alex’s display was commercially available. It’s included in a film called Ferry Pilot and this is available on DVD from the shop at the RAF Museum, Hendon, and probably elsewhere too.