Alfred William (Bill) Bedford OBE AFC

In 1951 Bill retired from a highly distinguished RAF career to join manufacturer Hawker Aircraft as an experimental test pilot. From 1956-67 he was a Hawker and subsequently Hawker Siddeley test pilot and then chief test pilot, finessing the Sea Hawk, the Hunter/P1127, Kestrel and Harrier V/STOL aircraft, making the first flights of all of the last three aircraft. For the first (tethered) hover in October 1960 of the P1127 – prototype of first fully successful experimental V/STOL fighter in the world, and ancestor of the Harrier jump-jet – his leg was in a plaster cast after a car accident; it was one of very few injuries he sustained in his lifetime, despite ejecting from a P1127 at 200ft as it was veering out of control…  Bill was the first pilot ever to land a V/STOL, again a P1127, on a ship, the Ark Royal in 1963. There could be no better sales manager of Hawker Siddeley Aviation from 1968-78 than Bill, who moved on to a similar role with British Aerospace until 1983, and thereafter consultancy and public speaking. Bill Bedford was born at Loughborough in 1920. He planned to be a steeplejack until the Second World War started, but then joined the RAF and flew Hurricanes on the home front and in Burma, India and Ceylon. Afterwards he graduated from the Empire Flying School all-weather course and became a tutor there. He was also an accomplished sailplane pilot, holding several UK national gliding records for distance and altitude. He was an important figure in test pilot associations, and his Surrey hometown elected him Esher Citizen of the Year for 1996, the year he died.