Selling
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Brian Trubshaw CBE, MVO, FRAeS – Director of Flight Test and Chief Test Pilot British Aircraft Corporation / British Aerospace 1966 – 1980
Brian Trubshaw was born on January 29 1924 and educated at Winchester . In 1942 at the age of eighteen he signed up for the RAF while on a visit to Lords Cricket ground. As a schoolboy he had formed an early enthusiasm for aircraft and also been his schools cricket Captain. Brian was soon off to the United States where he first trained as a Pilot flying Stearman biplanes. He joined Bomber Command in 1944, flying Stirlings and Lancasters, transferring a year later to Transport Command.
Having demonstrated flying skills that were considered "exceptional" in 1946, he joined the King's Flight, piloting George VI and other members of the Royal Family. This period was to leave itself in the memory of a young Princess soon to become Queen Elisabeth. When his death was announced a palace spokesman said: "The Duke is very sad." Mr Trubshaw was awarded the CBE in 1970 and was known as "my Brian " by the Queen, who knew him from his days with the King's Flight after the war. In addition to his flying duties he was sometimes called upon to join in after-dinner games with the young princesses while at Balmoral.
After a period spent teaching at the Empire Flying School and the RAF Flying College from 1949-50. As one of only two RAF pilots who had both fixed wing and helicopter experience his career was about to take him to Malaya when he was given permission to leave the service to take up a role as test pilot for Vickers-Armstrong. Ten years later he was to become chief test pilot in 1960, and director of test flights from 1966. Trubshaw worked on the development of the Valiant V-bomber, the Vanguard, the VC-10, and the BAC-111, all of which he test flew.
On an early test flight his legendary coolness under pressure and exceptional flying skills saved Britain 's prototype VC-10 from disaster. A feat that won him the Derry and Richards Memorial Medal for "outstanding test flying contributing to the advance of aviation" in 1965. Structural failure appeared imminent when an elevator section detached itself and the aircraft shook "as though the tail was shaking the dog". Unable to read the instruments because of the violent shaking he nevertheless broadcast to base the details of the problem in case he could return. Then - with only half the elevator control still working he proceeded to bring the plane safely home. With characteristic understatement he later described this manoeuvre as "one of my trickier moments".
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This was the second award of the same medal for Trubshaw who had already received it for his work in the early 1950s on the Valiant jet bomber. In this role he tested the delivery system for Britain 's first atom bomb. For obvious reasons there are limited details about the missions in this period but in a moment of candor upon his retirement in 1985 he revealed that he had been compelled to drop a concrete replica of the weapon into the Thames estuary.
Having already achieved enough to fill several flying careers his name was to become a household one in April 1969 when he first flew Concorde it's maiden UK flight. He emerged from the cockpit with the words: 'It was wizard - a cool, calm and collected operation.' Brian 's first flight on Concorde had been just a month earlier when he piloted the first test flight of the French prototype Concorde commanded by Andre Turcat.
The significance of these early Concorde flights was one he felt keenly. He spoke later of the crowds of onlookers who gathered around Filton and Fairford, and the fact that "the eyes of millions of people all over the world were focused on us".
Despite reaching this pinnacle of his career through merit, Brain never took the position for granted. Commenting later about his period flying Concorde during the test programme he said: "Many test pilots would have given almost anything to be in my shoes and I well appreciated how lucky I was. Drama was never far away and during an early test flight the failure of an altimeter meant that he had to land this radical aircraft with limited visibility through visual cues alone.
In 1972, Trubshaw took Concorde on a world tour as part of the early attempts to sell the aircraft to the airlines. It was also at this time that he married Yvonne Edmondson (nee Clapham). In 1974 he completed what remains the fastest civil transatlantic flight, travelling from Fairford to Bangor, Maine, in 2 hours and 56 minutes.
Trubshaw ended his career as divisional director and general manager of the Filton works of British Aerospace from 1980-1986. From 1986-1993 he served as a member of the board of the Civil Aviation Authority, and was in demand as an aviation consultant.
Concorde however was never far from his mind which he demonstrated by placing a weather vane depicting the plane on the roof of his house at Cherington, near Tetbury in Gloucestershire. His enthusiasm for and confidence in the aircraft didn't waiver after Concorde's only ever crash near Paris , when 113 people died. Responding to claims that the aircraft was unsafe, he said: "I have never heard so much bloody rubbish in my life" and bluntly declared Concorde "the safest aircraft I have ever flown."
In 1999 he was invited to be a passenger as Concorde flew the route of his first flight to mark its 30th birthday. Asked to comment on how it compared to his first flight he noted the more luxurious conditions. "There weren't any seats in the back the first time," he said.
An outgoing character, Trubshaw was not one to sit idle and in later life added golf to his passion for cricket. An interest in equestrianism saw him take up a position as a fence judge at the Badminton Horse Trials.
