From Airfix to Test Pilot

Me in a Ryan ST-3 about to conduct some spin testing

Frankly my recently published book ‘Test Pilot’ is entirely the fault of Airfix if you ask me. Although they probably share the blame, to some extent, with my dad, where we spent our summer holidays and Keil Kraft balsa models.

My father, Edward Taylor, as a 20 year old clerk, joined the RAF, mainly in the hope that the uniform would help him pull the girls; not that he needed any help in that department if his collection of sepia photos of glamorous sirens was anything to go by. He’d wanted to fly but the RAF was desperate for medically fit clerks to join the squadrons as they deployed overseas.

Edward’s photo of his friends on 222 Sqn circa 1941

My dad joined 222 Squadron operating Spitfires (Vbs) and in 1943 transferred to 65 Squadron flying Mustangs (IIIs then IVs). He spent lots of time in Scotland and the South of England but then found himself in France shortly after D day as 65 Squadron flew ground attack missions from dirt strips just behind the lines. Some of his funnier, and scarier, stories were generated in this period, including driving a jeep load of pilots into Brussels to get hammered only, on the way home, to notice blokes in grey uniforms standing on street corners. The Germans (who clearly hadn’t been on the memo my dad had read about the city’s liberation) were so amazed to see a bunch of drunks, being driven at such speed, they had no time to unsling their rifles.

In contrast was the occasion where he had been driven into a French town with some mates. Reading between the lines, my dad had evidently managed to charm a local lass, and was late getting back to the pick-up point where he arrived to see the Bedford truck disappearing in a cloud of blue exhaust smoke. Said truck ran over a mine a few miles up the road and there were no survivors. His mates were nearly all pilots and he had the unenviable task of drafting the letters to mothers and wives following such incidents and sorties when they failed to return. Summer holidays in France, Belgium and Holland included tours of numerous cemeteries. My dad almost certainly suffered from what we would now describe as PTSD. He spent several weeks in an RAF Hospital at one stage and had a nervous breakdown running up to his planned wedding years after the war.

65 Squadron 19 June 1944 Ford, Sussex. Edward. Without a hat, is standing on the Mustang’s wing.

As a youngster our beach holidays were taken in Anglesey, just along from RAF Valley. Shiny silver Lightning fighters, bright yellow (then red) Gnat trainers and Whirlwind Search and Rescue helicopters would all overfly us while we were building our sand castles. Kites made way for Kiel Kraft balsa wood elastic-band-powered aircraft and hard earned pocket money was spent every Saturday morning at the local newsagent who sold Airfix bagged models of Spitfires and Hurricanes which could be built in a day and hung from bedroom ceilings the same evening. Dad loved it that I wanted to be a pilot – and I did from as soon as I could build Airfix, Lego or Meccano planes. I dreamt of flying Spitfires and read all of W.E. Johns books about my all-time hero, James Bigglesworth aka Biggles.

There was nothing he couldn’t fly or do with an aeroplane. However in my teens I became more aware of the activities of the Fleet Air Arm and at the age of sixteen spent two weeks drinking, at the expense of the tax payer, in the Wardroom bar at Royal Naval Air Station Culdrose, where every day the Royal Navy flew me in a different type of aircraft. Not content with that ‘sales pitch’ they awarded me a Flying Scholarship, as a member of my school cadet force, which allowed me to be awarded a PPL before I had chance to take my driving test.

Despite suffering a stroke, that left him wobbly on his feet and unable to speak, Dad continued to enthusiastically encourage me and must have been the proudest and drunkest sixty-something bloke at my ‘Wings Day’. Thankfully he got to see me become a successful operational pilot, husband and dad before he passed away a few years later.

My first Operational Westland wasp HAS1 445 XT429 HMS Plymouth Flight

With my dad’s inspiration and support I determined that I would become a military pilot – at the time my research led me to the conclusion that flying the Westland Wasp helicopter in the Fleet Air Arm was the most exciting role I could aspire to (this was pre-Sea Harrier and post Phantom/Buccaneer). It may sound arrogant, with hindsight, but before I had received my Royal Navy Wings I had developed a hankering to become a Test Pilot.  After a huge amount of hard work and a very successful operational career as a Wasp, and then Lynx, pilot I found myself at the Empire Test Pilots’ School (ETPS) where another extremely hard twelve months had me achieve my ultimate ambition of becoming an ‘Experimental Test Pilot’. Within days of graduating I was not just flying a wide variety of helicopters but Jaguar and Hunter jets and, Andover and BAC 1-11 large aircraft.

Test Flying the Jaguar at Boscombe Down

I count my blessings that ETPS needed another instructor or tutor just at the right time and I spent a further seven years teaching a whole new generation of test pilots. For reasons I will not bore you with here I became frustrated by my role and when a job at the UK’s Civil Aviation Authority opened up my application was in the post the same day I’d seen the advert! And blow me down – against all the odds I was successful and employed as a Fixed Wing Test Pilot. With my qualifications as a Rotary Wing Test Pilot it wasn’t long before I found myself testing Aeroplanes AND helicopters AND autogyros. My boss described me as ‘Buy One – Get One Free!’ The pace was frenetic. In my first year in the job I flew around 150 flights and all of them in different types of aircraft. As I write this article have logged in excess of 400 different types – most of which I flew to test for one reason or another.

I have managed to acquire Test Pilot ratings for both aeroplanes and helicopters and I am licenced to give flight test instruction on both. Along with my flight test experience and qualifications for testing autogyros I am arguably the most qualified and experienced test pilot in Europe, if not the World.

As my years have advanced slowly towards inevitable retirement I have determined to accomplish two things. Firstly I intend to build plastic models of some of the most influential aircraft I have flown – and that my dad was involved in. I’ve already built a couple of 222 Sqn Spitfires and a couple of 65 Sqn Mustangs. My loft and cellar are now full of kits of models I intend to build – when I get time! Secondly, aware that my dad lost the ability to talk when he was just sixty, I have decided to document some aspects of my aviation career in a series of books so that at least my grandchildren with have an inkling of what I used to do when they are older.

My first book ‘Test Pilot’ was published by Pen and Sword in March 2022. I have read a number of books – (well several score) by other pilots and sadly with a few exceptions (e.g. First Light) I confess I have found them mostly boring. For some reason authors seem to think I will be fascinated by what they had for their school dinners or whether they won colours for playing some sport or other. I’m not. What I want to know about is what they flew, and what they thought of what they flew and how they survived years of flying often dangerous aircraft in dangerous circumstances. So I have written my book for me – and readers like me. I can’t concentrate well on long complicated detective novels.

Between chapters I forget who the characters are! Let alone remember the required twists and turns in the plot. In my case I was inspired by Emily Maitlis who wrote a book about her experiences called ‘Airhead’. Each chapter is an episode – invariably an interview with a well-known individual. And so my book follows a similar concept. It is not chronological. The chapters are stand-alone and can be read out of sequence. There is next to nothing said about my childhood but it is crammed with interesting stories and anecdotes about being a modern day test pilot, testing aeroplanes, helicopters, warbirds, autogyros, powered parachutes, gliders, kit-builts and microlights. I narrate the good the bad and the ugly – and many were very, very ugly babies. I document nearly a score of engine failures and other emergencies that used up more adrenalin than I care to mention.

Me flying the Sea Fury out of North Weald

For those interested in warbirds I recollect about testing my favourite aeroplane – the Sea Fury which trumped the Spitfire and Mustang for a number of reasons.

The Two Seat Spitfire I test flew and had major problems

I was also lucky enough to test the Hunter, Gnat numerous Strikemasters and Jet provosts and include one of my scarier incidents when the wheels on my Vampire jet refused to come down just as Kemble airfield was closing.

Yikes.

One of the Vampires I flight tested

Some of my most alarming moments were in the United States and I haven’t shrunk from explaining the differences in our flight test methodology, with some ‘friendly’ banter about yanks versus brits.

Me and my chum ray flight testing the Sikorsky S92A in the USA

The book includes stories from my most recent two decades. My next book ‘Experimental Test Pilot’ will be published in April 2023 and attempts to cover some of the military hardware I have flown and tested.

I wrote the book, often with a glass of wine at my side, as I was keen for my stories to be read as pilots tell yarns - when sitting on a pub bar stool or at some reunion where faded medal ribbons, squadron ties and blazers are the normal attire. I am told I have achieved the aim.

So only one further book to write about my time driving a Hong Kong patrol boat, navigating a trial frigate, being kidnapped by French Fishermen, ramming a German Frigate, ditching a Wasp and becoming an ‘Exceptional Lynx instructor’ and then I can turn my hand to building all those Airfix kits in the cellar that I’ve invested in.