Captain Freddie Hefford, who had died aged 97, flew 77 types of aircraft including gliders, helicopters, hovercraft, single-engined propeller-driven and four-engined jets; he made over 1,000 deck landings and logged 3,884 hours of flying, almost all in demanding operational or test-flying conditions, to become one of the outstanding aviators of his generation.
Frederick Hefford was born on January 7 1927 in Northampton, where his father was a cobbler and his mother a piano player, and was educated at Campbell Square School, Northampton.
As a teenager he was fanatical about the idea of flight and in 1944 joined No 5F Squadron Air Training Corps, where he learned to glide and became a Flight Sergeant, but in the end-of-war hiatus there was no opportunity to learn to fly in the RAF. Instead, he became an apprentice at Grose’s Garage, where he worked on many high-class vehicles including Rolls-Royce cars, an experience which proved of great value when he became a test pilot.
When Hefford heard that there were vacancies in the Fleet Air Arm, he volunteered at once and in the winter of 1947-48, after nine hours and 40 minutes of instruction, he flew solo in a Tiger Moth. He became a commissioned pilot in the Fleet Air Arm and continued flying training in 766 Naval Air Squadron at Lossiemouth and 737 NAS at Eglinton, and accomplished his first deck landing on board the carrier Illustrious in the Irish Sea on January 24 1950.
Hefford was appointed to 800 NAS and flew the Seafire Mk 47, the last iteration of the wartime Supermarine Spitfire, during a tour in the carrier Triumph. Returning home, Hefford was promoted and he converted to the Hawker Sea Fury. The Seafire had been a delight to fly, he wrote, and had performed well in FAA service, but the Sea Fury was a masterpiece of engineering and aerodynamics.
He returned to Korea to join 804 NAS, part of the 14th Carrier Air Group in Glory, and on March 17 1952 he flew three sorties, contributing to the record-breaking 106 sorties which Glory flew off that day. While Hefford and his peers flew repeated strafing and bombing attacks on bridges, sampans and troop concentrations, Glory accomplished some one thousand deck landings without accident.
Hefford, now a lieutenant, was Mentioned in Despatches and awarded the DSC in 1953 for his outstanding courage, leadership and skill as a pilot. He remained in 804 NAS when it transferred successively to the carriers Theseus, Illustrious and Indomitable.
Next, Hefford went to the school for landing signals officers (known as batsmen). LSOs were expected to be fully qualified to deck-land all types, and Hefford, as a “clockwork mouse”, flew many varieties of aircraft and participated in trials, which gave him a taste for test flying.
In 1954 he became a student at the Empire Test Pilot School and the following year became a test pilot in the structures of mechanical engineering flight. Over the next three years as a naval test pilot he flew more types of aircraft, ranging from light, single-engined planes to V-bombers.
In 1958 and 1959 at Farnborough, he tested a new ejector seat, firing with a dummy from a specially modified Canberra. Once, at low level and high speed, he discovered that he had lost pitch control of the aircraft. Climbing to altitude and attempting low-speed handling in landing configuration, Hefford found that below 160 knots the aircraft would enter a dive from which he could only recover by adding power.
Well above normal landing speed, he diverted to the long runway at Boscombe Down and warned other aircraft to keep clear in case he had to eject. Despite his Canberra bucking as he lost pitch control in the ground effect, he landed it safely. Subsequent inspection revealed that debris had become jammed in the ailerons.
Next, as senior pilot of 803 NAS, flying the Scimitar jet, Hefford began experimenting with single-throttle landings, but on March 6 1960, during an approach to HMS Ark Royal in light airs with little wind over the deck, he was caught by a downdraft. As his Scimitar lost height, falling below the level of the flightdeck, Hefford was faced with the choices of ejecting, trying to pick up speed in an attempt to turn away, or continuing the landing procedure.
He chose the last, hitting the round down (the aft end of the flightdeck), which damaged the hydraulics of his landing gear, but he bounced and caught the last arresting wire, bringing his aircraft successfully to a halt. Later his captain told him, “Your name will be forever imprinted in my mind.” Hefford quipped: “And my aircraft, Sir, is forever imprinted on your flightdeck.”
From 1968 to 1971 Hefford commanded the naval test squadron at Boscombe Down, and completed weapon-firing trials ashore and afloat, flying the Buccaneer low-level bomber and the Phantom fighter bomber. He also fired and approved the clearance of a manually guided air-to-surface missile from the Sea Vixen, which he afterwards reflected was “an interesting challenge”.
Then on June 2 1969, after touch-and-go trials, he made the first arrested flightdeck landing on the carrier Eagle in a Phantom F4K. Subsequently he was the first to use reheat to aid take-off: “It was spectacular and noisy.”
He was awarded the AFC in 1971.
After desk jobs in London and Washington, he was appointed OBE in 1976. That year he obtained his pilot’s certificate for the SRN6 hovercraft, and he commanded the Naval Hovercraft Trials Unit at HMS Daedalus, Lee-on-Solent.
His naval career ended as an acting captain and naval and air attaché in Lima and La Paz, 1978-80, when he retired as an honorary captain to be a marketing executive for British Aerospace.
Asked why he never became an airline pilot, Hefford was adamant that he never wanted to be less than active and at the top: “There were risks in what we were doing but it was an everyday thing. The scientists wanted certain information, so you had to do certain things with the aircraft and then report what happened.” Hefford was otherwise modest and, unlike some of his brasher flying colleagues and contemporaries, never recorded his achievements except in the cold, factual pages of his flying logbooks. He was an outstanding pilot, but also a kind, gentle, and humorous man with a dedication to friends, family, fishing, and, above all, flying.
He was secretary of the Portsmouth Services Fly Fishing Association for several years, and he last fished with his son, son-in-law and grandson for salmon in Iceland in 2015, at the age of 88.
He married Valerie Jean Smith, an Australian, whom he met while his ship was visiting Sydney. She predeceased him in 2012 and he is survived by a son and two daughters.
Captain Freddie Hefford, born January 7 1927, died May 28 2024
