Eric Brown (pilot) - Post War

Post War

After World War II‚ Brown commanded the Enemy Aircraft Flight, an elite group of pilots who test-flew captured German aircraft. That experience makes Brown one of the few men qualified to compare both Allied and Axis "warbirds" as they actually flew during the war. He flight-tested 53 German aircraft, including the Me 163. He tested this rocket plane in powered flight as apparently the only Allied pilot (having done that rather unofficially, as it was deemed more or less suicidal undertaking due to the notoriously dangerous propellants, C-Stoff and T-Stoff), and the Messerschmitt Me 262, Arado Ar 234 and Heinkel He 162 turbojet planes.

Fluent in German, he helped interview many Germans after World War II, including Wernher von Braun and Hermann Göring, Willy Messerschmitt, Dr. Ernst Heinkel., Kurt Tank and top Luftwaffe fighter ace with 352 victories, Erich Hartmann. In addition, Brown spoke to Heinrich Himmler. Coincidently, Brown had himself been using Himmler's very own personal aircraft, a specially-converted Focke-Wulf Fw 200 Condor that had been captured and was being used by the RAE Flight based at the former Luftwaffe airfield at Schleswig. He was also able to renew acquaintances with German aviatrix Hanna Reitsch, whom he had met in Germany before the war.

As an RAE test pilot he was involved in the wartime Miles M.52 supersonic project, test flying a Spitfire fitted with the M.52's all moving tail, diving from high altitude to achieve high subsonic speeds. He was due to fly the M.52, but this fell through when the project was cancelled. The all moving tail information, however, gleaned from British at Miles' Woodley facility, allowed Bell to modify its XS-1 for the true transsonic pitch controllability, allowing in turn Chuck Yeager to become the first man to exceed Mach 1 in 1947.

In a throwback to his days testing aircraft in high speed dives, while at the RAE Brown performed similar testing of the then-new Avro Tudor airliner. The requirement was to determine the safe limiting speed for the aircraft, and to gather data on high-speed handling of large civil aircraft in preparation for a projected four-jet version of the Tudor. Flying from 32,000 ft, in a succession of dives to speeds initially to Mach 0.6, he succeeded in diving the Tudor up to Mach 0.7, an unusual figure for such a large piston-engined aeroplane, this speed figure being dictated by the pilot's discretion, as pulling the aircraft out of the dive had required the combined efforts of both Brown and his second pilot. However, as an airliner, the Tudor was not a success. The planned jet-version of the Tudor would later become the Avro Ashton.

In 1946 he test flew a modified (strengthened and control-boosted) de Havilland DH.108 after a fatal crash in a similar aircraft while diving at speeds approaching the sound barrier had killed Geoffrey de Havilland, Jr. Brown initially started his tests from a height of 35,000 ft, rising to 45,000 ft, and during a dive from the latter he achieved a Mach number of 0.985. It was only when attempting the tests from the same height as de Havilland had, 4,000 ft, that he discovered that in a Mach 0.88 dive from that altitude the aircraft suffered from a high-g pitch oscillation at several hertz (Hz). "the ride was smooth, then suddenly it all went to pieces .... as the plane porpoised wildly my chin hit my chest, jerked hard back, slammed forward again, repeated it over and over, flogged by the awful whipping of the plane...". Remembering the drill he had often practised, Brown managed to pull back on both stick and throttle, and the motion; " ... ceased as quickly as it had started". He believed that he survived the test flight partly because he was a shorter man, de Havilland having suffered a broken neck possibly due to the violent oscillation. Test instrumentation on Brown's flight recorded during the oscillations accelerations of +4 and -3g's at 3 Hz. Brown described the DH 108 as; "A killer. Nasty stall. Vicious undamped longitudinal oscillation at speed in bumps". All three DH.108 aircraft were lost in fatal accidents.

In 1948 Brown was awarded the Boyd Trophy for his work in trials for the rubber deck landing system On 30 March 1949 he was granted a permanent Royal Navy commission as a lieutenant, with seniority backdated to his original wartime promotion to the rank.

On 12 August 1949, he was testing the third of three Saunders-Roe SR.A/1 jet-powered flying-boat fighter prototypes, TG271, when he struck submerged debris, the aircraft sinking in the Solent off Cowes, Isle of Wight. He was pulled unconscious from the cockpit of the wrecked aircraft, having been knocked out in the crash, by Saunders-Roe test pilot Geoffrey Tyson. He was promoted lieutenant-commander on 1 April 1951, commander on 31 December 1953 and captain on 31 December 1960.

Brown is responsible for at least two important firsts in carrier aviation - the first carrier landing using an aircraft equipped with a tricycle undercarriage (Bell Airacobra Mk 1 AH574) on the trials carrier HMS Pretoria Castle on 4 April 1945 and the world's first landing of an all-jet aircraft (a Ryan FR Fireball mixed-power fighter having landed on the USS Wake Island, with only jet-power, when its piston powerplant failed on November 6, 1945), landing the de Havilland Sea Vampire LZ551/G on the Royal Navy carrier HMS Ocean on 3 December 1945. He also holds the world's record for the most carrier landings, 2,407.

In the 1950s during the Korean War, Brown was seconded as an Exchange Officer to the United States Naval Test Pilot School at Patuxent, Maryland, where he flew a number of American aircraft, including 36 types of helicopter.In January 1952, it was while here that Brown demonstrated the steam catapult to the Americans, flying a Grumman Panther off the carrier HMS Perseus while the ship was still tied up to the dock at the Philadelphia Naval Yard. It had been planned for Brown to make the first catapult launch with the ship under way and steaming into any wind; however, the wind on the day was so slight that British officials decided that, as the new steam catapult was capable of launching an aircraft without any wind, they would risk their pilot (Brown) if the Americans would risk their aircraft. The launch was a success and US carriers would later feature the steam catapult. It was around the same time that another British invention was being offered to the US, the Angled Flight deck, and Brown once again was called upon to promote the concept. Whether due to Brown or not, the first US aircraft carrier modified with the new flight deck, the USS Antietam, was ready less than nine months later.

In 1954 Brown, by then a Commander, became Commander (Air) of the RNAS Brawdy, where he remained until returning to Germany in late 1957, becoming Chief of British Naval Mission to Germany, his brief being to re-establish German naval aviation after its pre-war integration with and subornment to, the Luftwaffe. During this period Brown worked closely with Admiral Gerhard Wagner of the German Naval Staff. Training was conducted initially in the UK on Hawker Sea Hawks and Fairey Gannets and during this time Brown was allocated a personal Percival Pembroke aircraft by the Marineflieger, which, to his surprise, the German maintenance personnel took great pride in. It was in fact, the first exclusively naval aircraft the German Navy had owned since the 1930s. Brown successfully led the re-emergence of naval aviation in Germany to the point that in 1960 Marineflieger squadrons were integrated into NATO.

Later Brown enjoyed a brief three month period as a test pilot for the Focke-Wulf company, helping them out until they could find a replacement after the company's previous test pilot had been detained due to having relatives in East Germany.

In the 1960s, due to his considerable experience of carrier aviation, Brown was consulted on the flight deck arrangement of the planned new UK class of aircraft carrier, the CVA-01, although the ship was subsequently cancelled while still on the stocks. In September 1967 came his last appointment in the Royal Navy when, as a Captain, he took command of HMS Fulmar, then the Royal Naval Air Station (now RAF), Lossiemouth, until March 1970. He was appointed a Naval Aide de Camp to Queen Elizabeth II on 7 July 1969, and promoted to Commander of the Order of the British Empire in the 1970 New Year Honours. He relinquished his appointment as Naval ADC on 27 January 1970 and retired from the Royal Navy later in 1970.