Written and Produced by Brian Johnson. The world's oldest test pilot school is what is now called the Empire Test Pilots' School (motto "Learn to Test - Test to Learn"), at RAF Boscombe Down in the UK. BBC series 1986 about The Empire Test Pilots School. He was also the most-decorated pilot in the history of the Royal Navy. A series of six half hour episodes following course number 44. Captain Eric Melrose "Winkle" Brown, CBE, DSC, AFC, Hon FRAeS, RN (21 January 1919 – 21 February 2016) was a British Royal Navy officer and test pilot who flew 487 types of aircraft, more than anyone else in history. The British Aircraft Corporation TSR-2 (for "tactical strike and reconnaissance 2") was a cancelled Cold War strike and reconnaissance aircraft developed by the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC) for the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the late 1950s and early 1960s. Brown was the most decorated pilot of the Fleet Air Arm and served in the early 1950s as resident British test pilot at the U.S. Navy’s air test center at Patuxent River in Maryland. After the war Hoover signed up to serve as an Army Air Forces test pilot, flying captured German and Japanese aircraft. Pages in category "British test pilots" The following 27 pages are in this category, out of 27 total. The California-based Society of Experimental Test Pilots made him an Honorary Fellow. This list may not reflect recent changes . There are a number of similar establishments over the world . British test pilots.. [Geoffrey Dorman] Although this Bell X-2 Starbuster had a rough landing on its first glide test in 1952 the aircraft proved effective for its purpose, which was to evaluate flight characteristics in the Mach 2-3 range. These were the test pilots who, with Britain’s aircraft industry booming in the aftermath of war, brought all their dash and daring to the new jet age. Get this from a library! He became buddies with Chuck Yeager; Hoover was Yeager’s backup pilot in the Bell X-1 program, and he flew chase in a Lockheed P-80 when Yeager first exceeded Mach 1.