Historic Test Pilot Reunion at Boscombe Down Aviation Collection
On 9th October a reunion was held at the Boscombe Down Aviation Collection between two ex test pilots. They last met in 1962 when they were on an ETPS coarse at Farnborough.
The then Squadron Leader Mike Williams was on the 21st Empire Test Pilot course at Farnborough in 1962. He then went to Boscombe from 1963 to 1966 as a Squadron Commander on Support/E Squadron. He returned as Head of the CTTO Liaison cell from 1972 - 73 before going to Command RAF Little Rissington as the last Group Captain Station commander there. His rank on retirement was Air Commodore. The family moved back to Wiltshire in 1989. Mike has a total of 3,500 flying hours in his log book on 58 different types of aircraft, 29 of them as captain, something which would probably not be possible today.
Captain John Williams RN was also on the same ETPS course at Farnborough with Mike. He deployed on HMS Eagle on her last cruise being engineering officer for 800 squadron flying Buccaneers. He then went to Boscombe Down to become O.C ‘D’ squadron. He held this post from late 1976 to1979. During his military career he flew 35 different fixed wing aircraft and 12 helicopters. He has logged 4500 hours During his naval career he was credited 440 catapult launches [ 210 ashore ] He also made 248 carrier arrested landings. After retiring from the Royal Navy in1988, he then went on to work for Brooklands Aerospace. He was the test pilot for the Optica aircraft based at Old Sarum. He flew this aircraft for 450 hours before being made redundant when the company folded. John is also a qualified glider pilot and has logged 950 hours from 2700 launches. In New Zealand he achieved a maximum altitude of 21000 feet in a glider.
It was nice to be able to reunite these two test pilots after all these years and to be able to put these brave gentlemen back amongst some of the aircraft they tested. We are sure it brought back many memories. Both of them have said they would like to return and visit the collection again and expressed an interest to get involved in some way in the future.
Photo: Air Commodore Mike Williams [seated] with Captain John Williams RN
