The former test pilot Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown is listed in the Guinness Book of Records as having flown more types of aircraft than any other pilot in the world. Ever. This achievement is all the more remarkable given that only pilot-in-command flights count and that marks or variants of a basic type of aircraft are not included - so the 14 marks of Spitfire that he has flown, for example, count as just one of the 490 aircraft types in his Log Books.

This extraordinary record is reflected in the fact that Captain Brown is also the most decorated Fleet Air Arm and British test pilot and has a string of other records to his name, including the world’s first landing of a jet aircraft on an aircraft carrier. He was lucky enough to be a test pilot through the most extraordinary period in aviation history and now has opened up the pages of his Flying Log Books to reveal his experience of some of the most famous, rare, exotic and unusual aircraft ever built.

From the infamous Mitsubishi Zero-Sen, to the US Navy’s piston-engine Grumman F8F- 2 Bearcat; from the supersonic research de Havilland Swallow to dangerous experimental types such as the General Aircraft GAL/56, Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown knows their virtues and vices first hand. From rarities such as the North American Savage, designed to take-off from an aircraft carrier with a nuclear bomb, to icons such as the Lancaster, Flying Fortress, Mustang and Seafire, Eric ‘Winkle’ Brown has tested their qualities and takes the reader into the cockpits of these exciting aircraft, sharing the joys and hazards of flying 53 of the most weird and wonderful aircraft to ever fly.