Record-setting British pilot Eric 'Winkle' Brown dies at 97

Source: AP

By JILL LAWLESS

LONDON (AP) — Eric "Winkle" Brown, a British pilot who flew more kinds of aircraft than anyone in history and was the first person to land a jet on an aircraft carrier, has died. He was 97.

Brown's family said he died Sunday at a hospital in southern England after a short illness.

Often dubbed Britain's greatest pilot, Brown holds the world record for the most types of aircraft flown — 487 — and for the most carrier deck landings, at 2,407.

Nicknamed Winkle — short for periwinkle — because of his relatively short 5 foot 7 inch (1.7 meter) height, Edinburgh-born Brown was a soft-spoken man who described himself as "a strange mixture of an academic and a cowboy." His daring extended beyond the cockpit; in his youth he took a job as a circus Wall of Death rider, doing circuits on a motorcycle with a lion in the sidecar.

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FILE - This Wednesday, Aug. 7, 2013 file photo shows wartime test-pilot Captain Eric "Winkle" Brown in Farnborough, England. Eric "Winkle" Brown, a pilot who flew more kinds of aircraft than anyone in history and was the first person to land a jet on an aircraft carrier, has died. He was 97. Brown's family said he died Sunday, Feb. 21, 2016 at a hospital in southern England after a short illness. Often dubbed Britain's greatest pilot, Brown holds the world record for the most types of aircraft flown - 487 - and for the most carrier deck landings, at 2,407. (Andrew Matthews/PA via AP, file) UNITED KINGDOM OUT - NO SALES - NO ARCHIVE

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