BOULTON PAUL Chief Test Pilot

Signed on the title page by

A.E. ‘Ben’ Gunn MBE 

HDM Publications first edition 1996.  33 pages and well illustrated with photographs.

Very Good condition card booklet. With a few light handling marks and creases. Comes with an advertising flyer for the book and a hand written ‘With Compliments’ note signed by Ben.

Alexander ‘Ben’ Gunn was one of the famous post-war British test pilots.  He had his first flight with Sir Alan Cobham’s flying circus and joined the RAF aged 17 in 1941. He flew Spitfires and Tempests during the invasion of Normandy and was credited with shooting down the last V-1 flying bomb over England on 1 September 1944.  Becoming an RAF test pilot, he was seconded to Boulton Paul Aircraft and left the RAF in 1949 to become their Chief Test Pilot.  He was involved with testing a succession of experimental delta aircraft and  survived an inverted ejection from the P.120, the ‘Black Widow Maker’. In 1971,  ‘Ben’ Gunn retired from test flying having flown 175 different types of aircraft. Gunn died in 1999.

Effectively this is Ben’s autobiography with contextual notes by the co-author.  An interesting and very scarce signed test pilot book for anyone interested in the golden age of British experimental flying.