Peter Stickney wrote:

In article ,
"Keith W" writes:

Presumably that would be Captain Eric "Winkle" Brown RN who

had a long career after WW2 as a test pilot during which
he flew not only most allied aircraft but also most of the
German and Soviet types as well as being involved in
the early history of flying jets off carriers and the development
of the angled flight deck.

For values of "very early history equalling" "the first bloke to do
it".

Land on too. A Vampire, IIRR. And then he did the Flexible deck trials. Oh,
and he was one of the very earliest qualified helo pilots in the RN, who did
a lot of early research on vortex ring state in the Sikorsky R-4. IIRR, he
and another RN pilot's initial instruction on flying helos consisted of being
handed the manual for the R-4 by a US Master Sergeant, who then smartly
retired to a safe distance. Come to think of it, ISTR that the other pilot
was Alan Bristow. Brown also deck-landed a P-39, just because he wanted to.
Oh, and he holds the record for flying the most different types of a/c, 487
(that was his total as of 1988). Honorary fellow of the SETP (boy, is that a
list of international aviation royalty, past and present. See:
http://www.setp.org/HTML/Personnel/Fellows.htm )

Fellow and past president of the Royal Aeronautical Society, etc. He's a
small man in physical stature, but not in any other way.

Guy