David Eagles Lieutenant Commander John David Eagles AFC ( born 1935 ) is a British former test pilot and former Fleet Air Arm aviator . Early life . He was born in Brighouse in the West Riding of Yorkshire in 1935 . Career . On starting National Service in 1953 he joined the Fleet Air Arm ( FAA ) . For six months he trained on HMS Indefatigable . He spent fifteen months learning to fly with the United States Navy , where he flew the Harvard ( US Navy SNJ ) , the Grumman F9F Panther and the North American T - 28 Trojan at Naval Air Stations Pensacola FLA and Kingsville TEXAS . He returned to the UK to fly the FAA ' s Hawker Sea Hawk , one of Britain ' s first naval jet fighters . Seconded to the Royal Australian Navy ( RAN ) Fleet Air Arm for two years from June 1956 , he flew the Fairey Firefly and Hawker Sea Fury from ranas Nowra , New South Wales , leaving Australia in March 1958 . He flew Sea Venom and Sea Vixen fighters from British carriers until 1963 . Test pilot . In 1963 , he entered the Empire Test Pilots ' School Farnborough and completed the Empire Test Pilots ' Course . At MoD Boscombe Down for three years with the Naval Test Squadron , he flight - tested the current Naval aircraft and was project pilot for the Blackburn Buccaneer Mk 2 . He ejected from a Buccaneer in 1966 during a catapult launch trial on HMS Victorious . Afterwards he returned to the Fleet Air Arm , leading the Buccaneer Aeros five - plane display team . BAC . He joined the British Aircraft Corporation as a test pilot in 1968 , where he flight - tested the English Electric Lightning , English Electric Canberra and SEPECAT Jaguar from 1969 . He was the project test pilot when the Panavia Tornado was being developed by BAC from 1972 . On 17 October 1974 he carried out the first taxi - run of the first British aircraft ( " XX946 " ) . which The first flight had been made in Germany on 14 August 1974 from Ingolstadt Manching Airport . He flew the second , 55 min flight , of the first British prototype on 19 November 1974 . and the first flight of the second British aircraft ( " XX947 " ) on 5 August 1975 . British Aerospace . When British Aerospace was formed in 1977 he was made Chief Test Pilot . In January 1983 he became Director of Flight Operations . On 27 October 1979 he flew the Tornado F . 2 ( " ZA254 " ) , unusually going supersonic on its first flight , with Roy Kennard . Three Tornado F . 2 prototypes were built ; the others were " ZA267 " and " ZA283 " . He flew the second prototype " ZA 267 " on 18 July 1980 . Fitted with a more powerful RB199 engine and increased in length by 14 in ( 356 mm ) the F . 2 was redesignated F . 3 when it entered service . He piloted the British Aerospace EAP , fore - runner of the Typhoon ( " ZF534 " ) on its first flight on 8 August 1986 , exceeding Mach 1 . He said the EAP " is just what a fighter pilot wants . It is a shame we are only building one and not 800 . " He retired from test flying in 1987 , having flown over 6 , 000 hours . Panavia . Having reached the military test pilot age limit of 50 , he became Deputy Managing Director of Panavia Aircraft GmbH in 1987 . He retired from Panavia in 1993 but later returned to Germany in 1996 for a year to assist the Flight Test Department of DASA with their Eurofighter programme at Manching . Personal life . He is a Fellow of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots Fellow of the Royal Aeronautical Society and a Liveryman of the Guild of Air Pilots and Air Navigators . He married Raewyn Leach on 29 August 1962 divorced in 2004 and married Ann Kendal - Ward in October 2008 .