We have sad news to bring you this Sunday evening with a report of the passing of the greatest naval aviator in Fleet Air Arm history – and possibly the greatest aviator, period: 'Captain Eric Melrose Brown CBE DSC AFC' - better known as 'Winkle' Brown.
One month after his 97th birthday, the Leith born aviator passed away in hospital in Surrey, his family has announced.
No-one has flown more types of aircraft (487) nor performed more carrier landings (2,407) than Capt Brown, who met Hermann Goering at the Berlin Olympics in 1936… and then interrogated him after WWII.
His fluency in German also meant he also interrogated some of the senior Nazis at the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp, which was liberated by the British Army in April 1945.
That same year ended with the test pilot becoming the first person to land a jet aircraft on a carrier – a de Havilland Sea Vampire on to the deck of HMS Ocean (R68) on the 4th December 1945.
Capt' Brown retired from the Fleet Air Arm in 1970 having commanded HMS Fulmar – today the RAF base of RAF Lossiemouth – and served as ADC to the Queen.
![[ img ]](https://www.dropbox.com/s/ymxq59tpvu9epgt/Brown-3.jpg?dl=1)
On 3 December 1945, Brown became the first pilot to land on and take-off (pictured) from an aircraft carrier (HMS Ocean) in a jet aircraft. The aircraft he flew – the de Havilland Sea Vampire LZ551/G – is now preserved at the Fleet Air Arm Museum in Yeovilton, Somerset.
![[ img ]](https://www.dropbox.com/s/whnr6bs1peswmvb/DeHavilland_Vampire_HMS_Ocean_Dec1945.jpg?dl=1)
If you wish to learn more about this extraordinary man. a read of his Wiki page is very interesting. The phrase 'been there done that' was invented for this guy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eric_Brown_(pilot)
