HAD he lived just two years and 11 months longer, tomorrow would have been the 100th birthday of Captain Eric Brown, the most remarkable pilot in the history of aviation in Scotland, and some would say the world.

For in an extraordinary career, Brown flew 487 different types of aircraft, comfortably more than anyone else, and as a Royal Navy Fleet Air Arm pilot for much of his career, he also made 2407 deck landings at sea and 2721 take-offs.

These world records are unlikely ever to be beaten as they were compiled in numerous countries using the aircraft produced by many different companies, most of which no longer exist or which have been incorporated into multi-national conglomerates, while his seaborne records were set in circumstances that thankfully no longer apply – he was the test pilot for the myriad number of planes that were approved for aircraft carriers during and after the Second World War.

In addition, he was the Fleet Air Arm’s most decorated wartime pilot, he survived his ship being torpedoed, and being fluent in German, he was called in to interrogate the commandant of Bergen-Belsen concentration camp when it was liberated in 1945.

He went on to have a career as an author and lecturer, his speeches always delivered in the Scots burr he never lost even after moving to England to live.

Always known as Winkle because of his diminutive size, the long and extraordinary life of Eric Melrose Brown began when he was born in Leith on January 21, 1919, to his father Robert, a pilot in the RAF, and mother Euphemia nee Melrose, hence his middle name. She died when Brown was quite young.

The National:

Eric Brown shortly before his death in 2016

Brown was educated at the Royal High School in Edinburgh and caught the flying bug early, being eight years old when his father first took him aloft in a biplane.

He visited the Olympics in Berlin in 1936 where he met the German First World War ace Ernst Udet, who encouraged him to learn German. He also met Hanna Reitsch, the great German test pilot, when she flew a prototype helicopter inside a giant exhibition hall. Studying modern languages and particularly German at Edinburgh University, Brown quickly became fluent in the language and moved to Germany in 1938 to continue his studies and teach at a school. He was arrested on the outbreak of war, but was allowed to go to Switzerland.

Managing to get back to Britain, Brown spent the early part of the war in the Fleet Air Arm, winning the Distinguished Service Cross for his bravery in downing several enemy aircraft.

He was aboard the escort carrier HMS Audacity when it was torpedoed in the Atlantic and sank with the loss of 73 men. Brown survived in the cold water for hours while all the others in the sea died of hypothermia.

Brown was seconded to the Royal Canadian Air Force, before he was transferred to the Royal Aircraft Establishment as a test pilot, and began his accumulation of tested types and deck landings.

These included captured Axis planes which he flew so that he could tell Allied pilots what to expect. He was largely responsible for the US Air Force choosing the P-51 Mustang rather than other planes as the chief escort for bombing missions.

Testing all sorts of aircraft, including jets and helicopters, incessantly at Britain’s main test base, Farnbrough, Brown apparently worked six years without a single holiday. He was awarded an MBE for his service.

After the German surrender, Brown was asked to help with the liberation of the Bergen-Belsen concentration camp. He interrogated Josef Kramer and Irma Grese, the commandant of the camp and his assistant, and commented: “Two more loathsome creatures it is hard to imagine.” Grese, he said, was “the worst human being I have ever met”.

He also interrogated Luftwaffe chief Hermann Goering, and described him as charismatic. His questioning helped convict Goring. who committed suicide before he could be hanged after his trial at Nuremburg. After the war, Brown became the top test pilot in Britain. He carried out the first landing of a jet aircraft on a carrier – a de Havilland Sea Vampire on the carrier HMS Ocean – on December 3, 1945, before going on to set record after record in testing aircraft.

He was promoted to Captain and went home to Scotland in 1967 to become commander of the Royal Naval Air Station at Lossiemouth.

He was made a CBE on his retirement in 1970, and in his later years enjoyed considerable success as an author – his autobiography Wings On My Sleeve was a best-seller, while his lectures on his career and aviation in general were always entertaining.

He married his wife Evelyn (Lynn) nee Macrory in 1942 after meeting her while training in Belfast, and they were together for 56 years until her death in 1998.

Capt Brown died one month after his 97th birthday on February 21, 2016. They are survived by their son Glenn. A statue in Capt Brown’s honour was unveiled at Edinburgh Airport last year by former naval pilot Prince Andrew.