Test Pilot (Aviation Classics)

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Created in the Peerage of England by writ in 1432 when George Nevill, the son of Ralph Neville, 1st Earl of Westmorland was summoned to Parliament. Abeyant in 1577. 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.

He soon discovered that the Tomahawk was far inferior to the Spitfire: in four sorties 14 of them were lost against the superior German fighters.In the space of six days, Duke was shot down twice and forced to crash land in the desert before being rescued.His score started to mount, however, and by the end of the year he had destroyed at least four aircraft and damaged others.The squadron re-equipped with the superior Kittyhawk and with eight confirmed victories Duke was awarded a DFC. 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.

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Sqn Ldr Neville Duke, 85, flew 485 sorties achieving 28 air combat victories, including seven aircraft shot down in seven days. Although Duke found his job of passing on his experience to young pilots satisfying, he was impatient to return to operations, which in February 1944 he did: he was posted to command No 145 Squadron based in Italy and flying the powerful Spitfire VIII.

Thomas, Andrew. Tomahawk and Kittyhawk Aces of the RAF and Commonwealth. Oxford, England: Osprey Publications, 2005. ISBN 978-1-84176-083-4. Sarah and Helen, daughters of Terry and Mary Binns who lived at Number 15 for nearly 50 years, presented flowers to Gwendoline Duke during the ceremony. Tangmere Aviation Museum provided support for Anthony in organising the plaque and you can visit the museum to see the Hunter Hawker in which Neville Duke broke the air speed record. While other recollections of the day are few, I can still see one of the engines from John Derry's aircraft careering towards and over the top of us (it came down in the crowd on the embankment some way behind). Promoted to Squadron Leader, Duke was posted to No. 73 Operational Training Unit at Abu Sueir as chief flying instructor before returning to operations in March 1944 for his third tour, as CO of 145 Squadron in Italy, flying Spitfire Mk VIIIs. He claimed five more aircraft shot down in May, gaining a second Bar to his DFC. On 7 June, Duke was shot down by flak and bailed out into Lake Bracciano, almost drowning when unable to release his parachute harness. He sheltered with Italian partisans until U.S. troops arrived. Early Tomahawks some with nose cones painted red some without, I maybe wrong but is the camouflage painting reversed on some of these?

My father had an interest in John Derry as he had a special small framed painting given to him of Derry breaking the sound barrier in 1948. He was known as one of the finest and safest of display pilots, and it was a terrible irony that he and so many others died in such a way. Sqn Ldr Duke, from Lymington, Hants, was taken ill after flying his aircraft G-Zero with Gwen, his wife of 60 years. My father and uncle would always go the airshows and stand on the hill where the majority of the casualties were. 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!”