Test pilot

The ever-interesting Aeroplane Monthly published a dramatic picture in its January issue of Flt Lt E R C Scholfield standing beside the rolled-up ball of wreckage which had been the Vickers Wibault Scout from which the pilot had jumped by parachute after all known methods of getting that aeroplane out of an inverted spin had failed. The article published with this and the pictures describes how RAE pilots became members of Leslie Irvin’s “Caterpillar Club” after saving their lives by using their parachutes. Scholfield was the second UK pilot to be elected. He had had to jump on July 1st, 1926, the first time he had bothered with a parachute. The Vickers’ test pilot was flying from Brooklands, where a year or two later he sampled motor-racing by driving Sir Alastair Miller’s Buick. W B