Talk:Eric Brown (pilot)

I'm flying high on a rocket to the sky

Amongst his portfolio is the Me-163, a rocket-powered aircraft. I understand that US servicepeople who travel into space are eligible for an astronaut's badge; is there some kind of international recognition for piloting a rocket (albeit in the atmosphere)? The act of flying on a rocket is still fairly exclusive, and it sounds like the kind of thing that would come to the attention of the international aviation community. I imagine that the RAF does not have a rocketeers' award, but I could be wrong. -Ashley Pomeroy (talk) 16:02, 13 November 2009 (UTC)

Brown was lucky in that he was told that the use of the Komet engine's highly-dangerous rocket fuels was soon to be forbidden by the Allies as they were horrendously dangerous, so he started to look for Komets and was lucky enough to find some airworthy examples on an airfield in Germany with some friendly ex-Luftwaffe personnel who helped brief him on flying the machine and who handled the fuelling of the aircraft, just a few days before the use of the fuels was prohibited. When the fuels were banned the captured stocks were destroyed, so after that no-one could fly one powered even if they had wanted to. Komets were flown afterwards, but only as gliders, so Brown may well have been one of the last pilots to fly one 'properly'. Brown himself flew the RAE's own Komet, VF241 [1], several times afterwards as a glider, usually being towed aloft by a Spitfire IX from either Wisley Airfield or RAF Wittering. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.40.252.207 (talk) 20:09, 18 November 2009 (UTC)

Undiscussed rename

What a poor choice of name. 8-( Andy Dingley (talk) 15:03, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

Agreed, I moved it back, it made him sound like a captain of a boat.Rememberway (talk) 15:48, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

In what way does "Royal Navy officer" make him sound like the captain of a boat? It makes him sound like an officer in the Royal Navy, which is exactly what he was and is the standard way to disambiguate Royal Navy officers! The same disambiguator would be used for medical officers, chaplains, engineers or supply officers, none of whom are captains of boats (or even ships) but all of whom are Royal Navy officers (see Category:Royal Navy officers if you don't believe me). Or are you claiming that despite spending over thirty years in the Royal Navy and holding the rank of captain, he wasn't actually a Royal Navy officer? What a bizarre thing to say. -- Necrothesp (talk) 23:46, 3 February 2011 (UTC)

No, I'm saying that it's not sufficient for the article title to be technically correct, plenty of things you can put in the name would be correct; but the purpose of the name is that it must optimally suggest what he most notably did for people looking for him in the Wikipedia. The major thing here isn't that he was a Royal Navy Officer, although he clearly was, it was that he flew aircraft as a test pilot, as that seems to be what he was most known for.Rememberway (talk) 00:08, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Tell, me, what Wikipedia naming policy are you following when you add the Royal Navy Officer to the article name?Rememberway (talk) 00:08, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

Consistency, as per the other articles in the category. It's long been established that that's how we disambiguate British military officers. As a professional naval officer known as a military pilot, not someone who was known as a pilot in civilian life and just happened to briefly serve in the Royal Navy, that's the disambiguator we should use. You'll find the same logic used in the articles in Category:Royal Air Force officers, the majority of whom were pilots and many of whom are primarily known for being pilots, but are still disambiguated as "(RAF officer)" unless they were better-known as civilian pilots. -- Necrothesp (talk) 01:28, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

That seems to be incompatible with Wikipedia:Naming conventions (people).Rememberway (talk) 02:18, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

In what way? I see no incompatibility whatsoever. -- Necrothesp (talk) 08:54, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

"The disambiguator is usually a noun indicating what the person is noted for being." I don't think he's most noted for being a naval officer, he's most noted for being a really excellent test pilot.Rememberway (talk) 16:21, 4 February 2011 (UTC)

While he was serving as a naval officer, which was his actual career. As a captain, he was hardly somebody who was a naval officer in his spare time! Had he concentrated on being a pilot and not an officer, he's unlikely to have got beyond lieutenant-commander at the highest, which is the usual maximum rank in the British forces for pilots who choose to concentrate on flying and not command. -- Necrothesp (talk) 22:47, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

I don't believe that that's relevant. If you ask someone who Eric "winkle" Brown is, if they know who he is they'll very probably say he was a test pilot, not that he was a naval officer. In fact the Wikipedia seems to more or less systematically remove titles and ranks from nearly all biographical article names. The point of the article name is for people to find the correct article easily, not to force people to have to know his rank or which service he was in to find it.Rememberway (talk) 23:27, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

And that's nothing to do with him in particular, it's just the way it's done in the Wikipedia, it's the house style, with only very rare exceptions, where the rank has essentially become part of the name he is known by. But I don't see anything about this particular person that requires it to be one of those rare exceptions.Rememberway (talk) 23:27, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

When was he promoted to Captain?

The article doesn't say. Moriori (talk) 22:04, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

1960. I've added it to the article. -- Necrothesp (talk) 22:55, 9 February 2011 (UTC)

Landing on HMS Indefatigable on 25 March 1944?

All for me available sources say Brown landed with a Mosquito on 25 March 1944 on HMS Indefatigable. --Rakell (talk) 17:42, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

Could you quote any? Or maybe one. Thanks. Martinevans123 (talk) 18:14, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

This history site says there were "Successful landing trials of MOSQUITO aircraft" on Indefatigable on 15 March 1944 during contractor's sea trials (a couple of weeks before being accepted into the RN). There is no mention of names of the pilots involved, so it would be good to get a reliable source for Winkle Brown, if there is one.

Rakell, I have amended the heading you put on this section, because you had the class of the ship, not its name. Cheers. Moriori (talk) 21:56, 26 June 2013 (UTC)

A 1946 Flight article on the Mosquito, including Brown's landing-on on Indefatigable - Brown is named at end of article - here: [2] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.7.147.13 (talk) 20:11, 15 July 2013 (UTC)

Hi Martinevans123, excuse my late answer. I am very seldom in the english Wikipedia. In the link given by 80.7.147.13 you find on page 207 of FLIGHT from FEBRUARY 28TH, I946 the following: "The trials were carried out on March 25th and 26th, 1944, from H.M.S. Indefatigable, and the Mosquito L.R. 359 was piloted by Lt. Cdr. E. M. Brown" and in the book A CENTURY OF CARRIER AVIATION from David Hobbs you find on page 186 as a description of a picture of the Mosquito landing: "The first carrier landing by a twin-engine aircraft. Lieutenant Commander Eric Brown lands a Mosquito FB.VI on HMS Indefatigable on 25 March 1944." I change now the article to this information. --Rakell (talk) 10:12, 7 November 2013 (UTC)

DH.108

Brown's altitude is queried [3]

AIUI, the DH.108 had behaved itself at high altitude (40,000 feet) and resultant high Mach (for the same airspeed) but had failed for de Havilland at a much lower altitude where he was chasing a higher absolute speed whilst avoiding the Mach issues. I haven't removed this query though, because I thought de Havilland was at something like 10,000 feet, not 4,000 and so it's not clear if this is Brown being even lower (maybe to try and reproduce the problem) or if it is indeed a simple digit placement typo from 40. Sources anyone? Andy Dingley (talk) 19:22, 9 October 2014 (UTC)

IIRC, Brown repeated DH's flights at a number of different altitudes and it was only at one particular one that the extreme oscillations occurred. I don't have the original reference any more - I got Wings on My Sleeve from a library - but the figure I originally added would have been accurate. DH may have been in a dive at the time and so may well have descended to 4,000 ft by the time the aircraft broke up.

BTW, the sole purpose of the test Brown performed was to try and find out what had actually happened to DH. There were no witnesses to the accident - it was out over the Thames Estuary - and all that was known was that he had failed to return from the test flight and that the wreckage and his body had been later found in Egypt Bay. So - in the absence of an automatic observer (cameras filming the flight instruments) - any altitudes DH had been flying at would have to be conjecture. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2.29.18.168 (talk) 11:01, 7 November 2014 (UTC)