Flight Line

摘要

I was recently reading astronaut Tim Peake's autobiography I Limitless for the reviews section of this very magazine, when I came across a nice story that links heroes old and new. While on the International Space Station, Peake planned a 'phone call from space to test pilot extraordinaire Eric 'Winkle' Brown, by then 97 years of age and living in West Sussex. Sadly, this never came to fruition as Brown passed away on 21 February 2016, after Peake's blast-off from earth - 15 December 2015 - but before the scheduled call. What a wonderfully symbolic link-up between two test pilots of very different generations that would have been!