SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
Didn't Captain Brown land a Mosquito on an aircraft carrier?
Griffon Spitfire was better than any Bf109?
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Yes, first landing of a twin if I remember right. Also required exceptional experience, skill, and a couple large anatomical pieces.
No one is being harsh, merely correcting the facts.
He joined the FAA as a pilot in 1939 at a time the FAA was a pool of very mediocre pilots thanks to the RAF's pre war policy of sending the last names on pilot applicant selections list to the Fleet Air Arm.
Yes, he was an outstanding pilot, and quickly stood out, but a trip to RAE to test into service new types in 1942 was not some mark of stellar ability - plenty of good combat pilots went there to bring new types into service - it was a great strength of both the UK and US - very good pilots were rotated out of combat to training schools, OCU's and as test pilots to pass on their skill rather than relentlessly flying in the front line until they died. It was quite usual for pilots who graduated top of their class in flight school to be posted straight to the flight school as an instructor rather to a combat squadron
.
His primary talent however was his ability to read and speak German fluently, so when they needed someone to test newly captured Axis types, he was a natural choice being able to read the technical literature first hand with a pilots mind.
Right man, with the right skills in the right place at the right time.
special ed
2nd Lieutenant
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- May 13, 2018
Capt. Brown also carrier qualled the unmentionable land based US fighter with arrested landings and takeoffs, all in one day.
Deleted member 68059
Staff Sergeant
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- Dec 28, 2015
Citation needed >
Deleted member 68059
Staff Sergeant
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Citation required as to language skills actually exceeding piloting and technical skills in test pilot recruitment as of quote "primary" requirement>
Deleted member 68059
Staff Sergeant
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- Dec 28, 2015
These are the pilots at the R.A.E. circa, 1943.
If you can find any info online for any of them having any exceptional German skills (other than Brown) you`re a better man
than me. This of course does not possibly prove none did have good German, but if it had been to an exeptional
level, and had been required/part of their professional achievements as test pilots, its odd to find nothing
mentioned.
I rather suspect its a lot cheaper and easier to find a few good test-pilots and get any of the thousands of
people in Britain with reasonable German to translate a few flight manuals and put stickers on a few cockpit
gauges than it is to go looking for test-pilots with security clearance and fluent German...
I wonder if perhaps you`ve got a bit mixed up with Brown being selected to be sent to Germany
after the war to interrogate German pilots and engineers - now for THAT job it really was
important to have fluent German... as usually the interpreters provided were not really able
to follow everything once the engineering talk got underway.
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
en.wikipedia.org
If you can find any info online for any of them having any exceptional German skills (other than Brown) you`re a better man
than me. This of course does not possibly prove none did have good German, but if it had been to an exeptional
level, and had been required/part of their professional achievements as test pilots, its odd to find nothing
mentioned.
I rather suspect its a lot cheaper and easier to find a few good test-pilots and get any of the thousands of
people in Britain with reasonable German to translate a few flight manuals and put stickers on a few cockpit
gauges than it is to go looking for test-pilots with security clearance and fluent German...
I wonder if perhaps you`ve got a bit mixed up with Brown being selected to be sent to Germany
after the war to interrogate German pilots and engineers - now for THAT job it really was
important to have fluent German... as usually the interpreters provided were not really able
to follow everything once the engineering talk got underway.
George Bulman (pilot) - Wikipedia
Richard Atcherley - Wikipedia
Hugh Wilson (RAF officer) - Wikipedia
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SaparotRob
Unter Gemeine Geschwader Murmeltier XIII
Was that because it kept running out of fuel?
wuzak
Captain
How much German technical literature did they have access to during the war?
How much did that help when he was testing Italian and Japanese aircraft ?
Brown also tested the landing systems for 20 aircraft carriers as it took (again) a lot of experience and skill to work out the vagaries of each individual ship.
He holds the record for the most different types of aircraft flown but also the most carrier take offs at 2407 plus landings at 2271. You don't take someone
with that kind of ability plus determination and put them into a training school.
Test pilots were a different breed as they knew they could at any time be getting into a plane with unknown problems that could kill them. It's not just Eric Brown
who should be thanked but all of those test pilots for the advances that come about in aviation.
FLYBOYJ
"THE GREAT GAZOO"
You have a colorful but somewhat clouded dissemination of facts, you keep bringing up his ability to speak German but yet most of his bios mention this in passing. Brown eventually stood out from his peers and the fact that he had carrier experience made him that much more valuable at RAE. His achievements are undeniable and his successes (especially in the air) did not primarily come from his ability to fluently speak German!
Back in Britain, Brown joined the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve as a Fleet Air Arm pilot, and was posted to 802 Squadron, flying the Grumman Martlet fighter from the Royal Navy's first escort carrier, HMS Audacity. He shot down two Luftwaffe marine patrol aircraft before HMS Audacity was sunk by a U-boat on 21 December 1941. Brown was one of only 24 survivors from the ship. He subsequently went on to fly with Royal Canadian Air Force units stationed in Britain, before going to Italy in 1943 to evaluate captured enemy aircraft. On his return to Britain he was posted to the Royal Aircraft Establishment at Farnborough, where his expertise in carrier operations was put to use testing the newly navalised Sea Hurricane and Seafire. By the end of 1943 he had made some 1,500 deck landings on 22 different aircraft carriers. On 25 March 1944 he made the first ever landing of a twin-engined aircraft on an aircraft carrier. He also became involved in high speed testing of aircraft it was hoped could tackle the growing threat of V1 flying bombs, learning lessons that were then applied to fighters escorting bombers of the United States Army Air Forces over Germany.
In 1944, Brown began testing jet aircraft. In February 1945, having taught himself the basics of control from a manual handed to him shortly before take off, he flew one of the first Sikorsky R-4 helicopters from Liverpool to Farnborough. On 4 April that year he made the world's first landing and take off from an aircraft carrier in an aircraft with a tricycle undercarriage (i.e. a nosewheel). Near the end of World War Two, Brown was given command of "Operation Enemy Flight", whose aim was to collect as much information as possible about the Luftwaffe's many advanced aircraft programmes. This led to him landing at a Luftwaffe airfield in Denmark to take possession of a number of Arado Ar 234 twin-jet bombers, only to find that the allied ground troops who were meant to have captured the airfield had not yet arrived. Luckily the Luftwaffe commander was content to surrender his airfield and his 2,000 men to Brown, who subsequently arranged for the return of a dozen of the aircraft to Britain. His fluency in German also led to his being asked to help interrogate the camp commander of the newly liberated Bergen-Belsen concentration camp.
Captain Eric Brown: Biography on Undiscovered Scotland
special ed
2nd Lieutenant
- 5,731
- May 13, 2018
The tricycle landing gear aircraft was the unmentionable fighter from Bell.
Brown was noted for his exceptional ability to land a plane on a carrier early in his career, that is how he became a RN test pilot. He spoke fluent German but not like a native, I have heard him speak German. I worked in Germany for a total of 9 years, very few are completely bi lingual including mannerisms, when you meet someone who is it is a little un nerving.
Well let's be fair here, Scottish people don't even speak english like a native ...
Deleted member 68059
Staff Sergeant
- 1,058
- Dec 28, 2015
That actually helps with German, there are a lot of words in "old scots" which are very close to German, such as
Kirk for Church (Kirche in German)
licht for light (Licht in German)
mair for more (Mehr in German)
langsome for slow (Langsam in German)
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A very surprising amount
He became a test pilot because he was a very good pilot.
He became the go to guy for testing captured Axis aircraft because of his ability to read the documentation first hand.
You may have heard him speak German, but I suspect not in the 30's when he had recently been a regular visitor to Nazi Germany
Deleted member 68059
Staff Sergeant
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- Dec 28, 2015
Thats not what you said on the previous page>
"If he wasn't able to speak German like a native, he'd never have ended up as a test pilot."
(and you have still not replied to any requests to provide citations for your remarks)
Coupled with his ability to fly aeroplanes and make take offs and landings add up to the same total, purely from reading the manual. Brown sounded like a Brit speaking German, I have heard many such people in Germany. Prince Philip didnt sound like a Brit speaking German because he learned German before English and spoke the very old fashioned high German that he originally learned.
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It didn't matter iff he 'sounded like a Brit speaking German', he had a rare ability for any test pilot in WWII, the ability to read firsthand and and fully comprehend German technical documentation and speak with captured Germands without the need of an interpreter who would not have any aeronautical background and would miss technical nuances.
