Farewell to a jet pilot
Frank Whittle invented the jet engine. The first commercial jet airline was the Comet. Both of these were British inventions. The Anglo-French Concorde was the first supersonic airliner. The pilot who flew the trans-Atlantic record of less than three hours between Britain and the United States was John Cochrane, who died November 4 in Cyprus.
John Cochrane was in command of Concorde when it reached its fastest supersonic speed of Mach 2.23 and a maximum altitude of 68,000 feet. Before being a test pilot, Cochrane was a squadron leader in the RAF, and had attended the Empire Test Pilot School at Farnborough.
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