CHAMPION TAILHOOKER
World champion carrier aviator Captain Eric “Winkle” Brown logged an incredible 2,407 shipboard landings with the Royal Navy. He also flew a record 487 aircraft types (excluding subvariants). But those numbers are merely the framework for a unique flying career.
Born in Scotland in 1919, Eric Melrose Brown was inspired by his father, a World War I airman. Among Brown’s early influences was German General Ernst Udet, whom he met in Berlin in 1936. The Kaiser’s second-ranking ace insisted, “You must become a pilot!” Udet could scarcely have suspected how successful a pilot the young
