Test Pilot (Aviation Classics)

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a. Humphrey Neville of Brancepeth c. 1439–1469 [36] b. Charles B. Sir Ralph Neville, d. 1458 [37] [38] C. Richard Neville, 5th Earl of Salisbury, 1400–1460 Duke was born in Tonbridge, Kent, and educated at the Convent of St Mary and The Judd School in Tonbridge. One of the four houses at Judd is now named after him, following the reinstating of a house system to the school in 2008. He started working as an auctioneer and estate agent before attempting to join the Fleet Air Arm on his 18th birthday. He was rejected and joined the RAF instead as a cadet in June 1940. As a fighter pilot, Sqn Ldr Duke was also shot down twice, including once by the German ace Otto Schulz.

I was a RAF Corporal and leaving our son with his grandmother we went off to Farnborough for the day. We were regulars. Derry completed his supersonic dive and was doing a high-speed circuit of the air field. He straightened up and the nose came up. Tomahawk Mk IIB 112 Sqdn pilot unknown Thought to be Jerry Westenra posing in front of Pete Brunton's plane. Dad (Tom Dugdill, 19/9/40 to 7/12/45) believes that George Staly, a friend of his and an engine fitter, was the first person to paint a shark on a Tomahawk, then the rest of the pilots wanted the same and the ‘Shark Squadron’ was born. Duke's books included Sound Barrier, Test Pilot, The Crowded Sky and The War Diaries of Neville Duke.Duke married Gwendoline Fellows in 1947. He was awarded the Air Force Cross recognising his test flying from 1947-1948 at the Aeroplane and Armament Experimental Establishment at Boscombe Down, where he flew research flights to explore aircraft performance at high Mach numbers and high altitudes. Duke resigned from the RAF in August 1948, joining the Royal Auxiliary Air Force, flying Spitfires and Meteors from Biggin Hill. He was CO of 615 Squadron in 1950 and 1951, whose honorary Air Commodore was Winston Churchill.

The male line of the Nevilles was of native origin, and the family may well have been part of the pre-Conquest aristocracy of Northumbria. [1] Following the Norman Conquest, most of the existing Anglo-Saxon aristocracy of England were dispossessed and replaced by a new Norman ruling elite, and although such survivals are very rare, continued landholding by native families was more common in the far north of England, including in County Durham, the area of their earliest recorded landholdings. He was a man who I think set the standards of the day. He was also probably the role model for Dan Dare in Eagle, which is perhaps the highest accolade of all!” Richardson, Douglas (2011). Everingham, Kimball G. (ed.). Plantagenet Ancestry. Vol.2 (2nded.). Douglas Richardson. p.615. ISBN 978-1-4499-6634-8.During his Second World War service Mr Duke flew Kittyhawks and Spitfires in North Africa. The 485 operational sorties he flew enabled him to become became the most successful pilot in the Mediterranean theatre of war. Sqn Ldr Duke was taken ill when he landed at Popham airfield near Winchester, on Saturday afternoon and collapsed a short time later. The Swift flopped, except as a star of David Lean's 1952 feature film about intrepid test pilots, the Terence Rattigan-scripted The Sound Barrier. The Hunter did not flop, and what set the seal on its success, and Duke's fame, was his performance at the 1952 Farnborough show. A. Edmund Neville H. Thomas Neville, c. 1410 I. Cuthbert Neville, c. 1411 J. Edward Neville, 3rd Baron Bergavenny, 1414–1476