from Hacker News

Eric 'Winkle" Brown – His Best and Worst Aircraft [video]

by daverol on 10/19/23, 4:28 PM with 10 comments

• by RachelF on 10/20/23, 6:19 AM

  The UK's version of Chuck Yeager in more ways than one.

  There are some good documentaries on him on Youtube, and his book "Wings on my Sleeve" is interesting. He might have been the first person to break the sound barrier if his Miles M1 hadn't been cancelled.

• by mellosouls on 10/20/23, 6:45 AM

  Classic Desert Island Discs with the great man:

  https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b04nvgq1

  A BBC documentary on him is available on YouTube etc, eg.

  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIMk3D-3J-s

• by hermitcrab on 10/20/23, 7:47 AM

  He still has the record for the most carrier landings (over 2000):

  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Brown_(pilot)

  There was a story that the US assigned someone to beat his record, but the poor guy had a nervous breakdown. Not sure if that's true.

• by ryandrake on 10/20/23, 5:25 AM

  Nice interview. Too bad he didn't discuss the Zero or other Japanese airplanes. Maybe he just didn't have any experience/knowledge of the Pacific theater of WW2; highly likely he'd never even flown a Zero or Ki-84 or Ki-43.