PILOTS from United Kingdom

Top 2

The following people are considered by Pantheon to be the most legendary British Pilots of all time. This list of famous British Pilots is sorted by HPI (Historical Popularity Index), a metric that aggregates information on a biography’s online popularity.

1. Sir Arthur Harris, 1st Baronet (1892 - 1984)

With an HPI of 63.99, Sir Arthur Harris, 1st Baronet is the most famous British Pilot.  His biography has been translated into 27 different languages on wikipedia.

Marshal of the Royal Air Force Sir Arthur Travers Harris, 1st Baronet, (13 April 1892 – 5 April 1984), commonly known as "Bomber" Harris by the press and often within the RAF as "Butch" Harris, was Air Officer Commanding-in-Chief (AOC-in-C) RAF Bomber Command during the height of the Anglo-American strategic bombing campaign against Nazi Germany in the Second World War. Born in Gloucestershire, Harris emigrated to Rhodesia in 1910, aged 17. He joined the 1st Rhodesia Regiment at the outbreak of the First World War and saw action in South Africa and South West Africa. In 1915, Harris returned to England to fight in the European theatre of the war. He joined the Royal Flying Corps, with which he remained until the formation of the Royal Air Force in 1918. Harris remained in the Air Force through the 1920s and 1930s, serving in India, Mesopotamia, Persia, Egypt, Palestine, and elsewhere. At the outbreak of the Second World War in 1939, Harris took command of No. 5 Group RAF in England, and in February 1942 was appointed head of Bomber Command. He retained that position for the rest of the war. In the same year, the British Cabinet agreed to the "area bombing" of German cities. Harris was given the task of implementing Churchill's policy and supported the development of tactics and technology to perform the task more effectively. Harris assisted British Chief of the Air Staff Marshal of the Royal Air Force Charles Portal in carrying out the United Kingdom's most devastating attacks against the German infrastructure and population, including the Bombing of Dresden. Harris's orders from the war cabinet to focus on area bombing over precision targeting remained controversial owing to the large number of civilian casualties and destruction the strategy caused in continental Europe. After the war Harris moved to South Africa, where he managed the South African Marine Corporation. He was created a baronet in 1953. He died in England in 1984.

2. Amy Johnson (1903 - 1941)

With an HPI of 54.91, Amy Johnson is the 2nd most famous British Pilot.  Her biography has been translated into 50 different languages.

Amy Johnson (born 1 July 1903 – disappeared 5 January 1941) was a pioneering English pilot who was the first woman to fly solo from London to Australia. Flying solo or with her husband, Jim Mollison, she set many long-distance records during the 1930s. In 1933, Katharine Hepburn's character in the film Christopher Strong was inspired by Johnson. She flew in the Second World War as a part of the Air Transport Auxiliary. Her aircraft crashed into the Thames estuary; she died after bailing out. Because her body was never recovered, the precise cause of her death—drowning, hypothermia or being pulled into moving propellers—is unknown, and has been a subject of discussion since the possibility of friendly fire was raised in 1999 (see below).