Test Pilot (Aviation Classics)

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His subsequent work as Hawker’s chief test pilot, at a time when transonic and supersonic flight was at an experimental and dangerous stage, resulted in him being awarded an OBE. Duke took up freelance aviation consultancy work until 1960, when he formed Duke Aviation Limited. He was Sir George Dowty's personal pilot for most of the 1960s and 1970s. He sold the company in 1982. He also became a test pilot for Edgley Aircraft and later Brooklands Aircraft on the Edgley Optica and Brooklands Firemaster 65. Derry, aged 31, and his flight observer Anthony Richards, aged 24, drove to de Havilland's base at Hatfield and took off in the first silver-coloured prototype WG236. This aircraft had flown supersonic many times. Given-Wilson, Chris, The English Nobility in the Late Middle Ages: The Fourteenth-Century Political Community (London and New

He returned to his squadron and achieved his final success on September 7 when he shot down two Messerschmitt Bf 109s near Rimini.The AOC instructed that Duke was to finish his third tour after completing 486 operational sorties.He had destroyed 27 enemy aircraft, and probably three more, making him the RAF's outstanding and highest-scoring fighter pilot in the Mediterranean theatre.He was 22 years old and at the end of October he returned to England after an absence of three years.Painted a high-gloss red, WB188 set a new absolute world airspeed record of 727.63 mph in the hands of Neville Duke flying from Tangmere on 7 September 1953. 12 days later, Duke set a second world record in WB188 – 709.2 mph over a closed 100km course – this time flying from Dunsfold. A month later, WB188 was retired from active test flying. Created in the Peerage of England by writ in 1447 when Edward Nevill, the 7th son of Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland, and husband of Elizabeth de Beauchamp, suo jure 3rd Baroness Bergavenny, was summoned to Parliament. Abeyant in 1938.

Geoffrey "de Neville" (d. c. 1242) inherited the estates of his mother's family as well as his father's, and adopted his mother's surname, but retained his paternal arms of Gules, a saltire argent. [10] In Norman-ruled England, a Norman surname was more prestigious and socially advantageous [11] than his original English surname FitzRobert. Jet aircraft incarnated the future. Landing in Prague that June in a Meteor, Duke was met, and mobbed, by a 150,000-strong crowd. In 1947, he married Gwendoline Fellows. A spokesman for Tangmere Military Aviation Museum in West Sussex, where Sqn Ldr Duke was honorary president, described him as a true gentleman. GA X, FR259. Kittyhawk Mk III, short tail. Flight Sgt Randolph Charles Carlyle Smith J16175 RCAF , 8/11/1942,Hawker Hunter WB188 is on display in the Museum’s Merston Hall, courtesy of the Trustees of the RAF Museum After the war he became a celebrated test pilot for Hawker, flying the Hunter fighter to the world speed record. He also flew the Harrier. We got up and heard a young ATC lad in uniform say with a smile on his face "That was the most exciting thing I have ever seen." We had to leave. Duke explored the extreme edges of high-speed jet aircraft performance and the effect of compressibility when approaching the speed of sound. SQUADRON LEADER NEVILLE DUKE, who has died aged 85, had a remarkable record as a fighter pilot during the Second World War; he was decorated for gallantry six times and went on to become one of the world's foremost test pilots. Aviation historians have paid tribute to one of Britain's most decorated World War II fighter pilots who died shortly after his last flight.