During more than two decades of uninterrupted flying Eric 'Winkle' Brown enjoyed the most extraordinary career of any test pilot and no pilot has a logbook that lists a greater variety of aircraft types flown. The first naval officer to head the elite Aerodynamics Flight at the world renowned Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, 'Winkle' Brown fulfilled his childhood ambition to fly German aircraft. Indeed, he was to fly no fewer than 55 individual German aircraft types, ranging from such exotic creations as the push-and-pull Dornier Do 335 and the remarkable little Heinkel He 162...

Eric 'Winkle' Brown, the former Chief Naval Test Pilot and Commanding Officer of the renowned Aerodynamics Flight at the Royal Aircraft Establishment, Farnborough, is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as having flown more types of aircraft than any other pilot in the world. The ground rules for this assessment were that only pilot-in-command flights should count, and that marks or variants of a basic type of aircraft were not included.

This remarkable record is reflected in the fact that Captain Brown is both the most decorated Fleet Air Arm and British test pilot. The variety of...