Desmond Penrose In Memoriam (1)
Desmond Penrose In Memoriam
Desmond Penrose passed 
away on 13 May 2025, shortly after his 95th birthday. 208 Squadron formed the bookends of Desmond’s long career. His first posting in the RAF was to 208, flying fighter-recce Meteors in Egypt. He was also a very enthusiastic and active representative for the Meteor Chapter of the Association, organising an annual all ranks get-together in London until recently. This was very much in the spirit of the first gathering of the Naval 8/208 Squadron Old Comrades Association. He was subsequently appointed as a Vice President of the 208 Squadron Association and remained so until his dying day.
After leaving 208, Desmond trained as a test pilot and had a distinguished career at the Royal Aircraft Establishment and, later, at de Havilland. A near-disaster occurred when Desmond was test flying the de Havilland Trident. The trainee captain in the left-hand seat reported that the controls had seized. Desmond confirmed that they had. The trainee anxiously insisted that they must declare an emergency, but Desmond overruled him, pointing out: “what do you think they can do: send someone up to help us?” He calmly swapped seats with the other pilot, then proceeded to fly the Trident smoothly back to Hatfield on differential power alone. Not wanting to reveal to RT eavesdroppers that the company’s pride and joy had a problem, he casually requested air traffic to: “ask the gentleman below you to get the gentlemen below him to meet us on the runway.” Flight Ops was one floor below the tower and the fire section was on the ground floor. Desmond executed a safe landing on power alone, whereupon the obstruction cleared itself. John Cunningham told him that he was worthy of a Queen’s Commendation (for valuable service in the air), but that he would not get it, presumably because the company had no intention of publicising the incident.
Desmond was also a prolific 
air display pilot, flying the diminutive Arrow Active and Alex Henshaw’s record-breaking Mew Gull, both of which he owned. His skills as a display pilot were much in demand and he flew many of the historic aircraft of the Shuttleworth collection at Old Warden, including the original ex-208 Sqn Bristol Fighter. Prior to joining the RAF, he had studied aeronautical engineering at Loughborough College; in 2015 he was awarded an honorary doctorate by Loughborough University. He was also highly regarded in the USA and was inducted as an Honorary Fellow of the Society of Experimental Test Pilots in 2016, two decades after his elder brother Harald, who had been a test pilot at Westlands.
Desmond Penrose In Memoriam Page 1 2
