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Test Pilots - J W Charles Judge

PeeWee Judge

J W Charles ‘Pee-wee’ Judge (1922 – 1970) started his aviation career with the Royal Air Force, flying Hurricanes and Spitfires of No 33 Squadron in the Middle East, with Fighter Command and with the 2nd T.A.F. in Europe. Later transferring to Typhoons of 245 Squadron again with the 2nd T.A.F. After the end of the war ‘Pee-Wee’ continued his service as a Ferry pilot and finally as a test pilot in India.On leaving the Service he was for a time a free lance Ferry pilot delivering aircraft to the Middle East, Pakistan and India until joining the Supermarine division of Vickers Armstrongs Ltd. as a test pilot in 1950 to fly Spitfire, Seafire, Attacker, Swift and Scimitar aircraft.

Then followed a period of one year with Rolls-Royce Limited, as a test pilot on the Tyne-Ambassador and Conway-Vulcan programmes. In 1961, he joined Beagle as test pilot at Shoreham, swiftly followed by his appointment as Chief Test Pilot in 1962. During the next eight years, he made the first flights on 12 different types of Beagle light aircraft—from the B.206-Y prototype on August 12, 1962, to the Bulldog prototype on May 19, 1969. He had joined Airmark in 1970 to continue development flying of the Wallis auto-gyro WA.117 when he was killed in a flying accident at the Farnborough airshow in 1970.

He held the Queen’s Commendation for Valuable Service in the Air and had amassed 6,850 hours of flying, which were spread over a wide pattern of aircraft types.

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