OT: Winkle Brown on the Beeb!

[hairyspin]

BBC Two tonight, 9pm: Britain's Greatest Pilot. Captain Eric 'Winkle' Brown, test pilot extraordinaire with more aircraft types under his belt than any other. I'm off-duty then whatever else happens: over to you middle!

 

[Lt. Heinz Becker]

Unfortunately no BBC in the states and on BBC America there's a Batman Forever marathon.

 

[hairyspin]

That's a pity, Brown may be in his nineties but is still as sharp as a tack!

 

[Lt. Heinz Becker]

There was a program on the American Heroes channel about Canada's No. 1 ace of WWII George Beurling. Very interesting accounts of the defense of Malta and how he was sent there because of two incidents flying for the RAF in the UK. The program is called Air Aces. Here's a link to a short video on their website.

http://www.ahctv.com/tv-shows/air-aces/videos/george-beurling-the-perfectionist.htm

 

[AndyG43]

That's a pity, Brown may be in his nineties but is still as sharp as a tack!

Missed it last night, but shall pick it up on iPlayer tonight. HB, with a bit of proxy hiding I understand iPlayer can be made to work overseas, worth a go.

Eric Brown is an incredible man, so many 'firsts' in his career and still holds a fistful of aviation records including, of course, the record for the most types ever flown; officially the figure stands at 487 types but when you consider, for example, that he flew fourteen different marks of Seafire and Spitfire the actual number will be much higher. It's unlikely that this record will ever be broken.

For anybody interested Wikipedia have a list of the types flown, my jaw hit the floor when I first saw it.