Jean Pinet (born 13 September 1929) is a French aviator and aeronautical engineer; as a former Concorde test pilot, he was the first person to take

Concorde The Aérospatiale/BAC Concorde () is a retired Franco-British supersonic airliner jointly developed and manufactured by Sud Aviation (later Aérospatiale) and the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC). Studies started in 1954, and France an ...

supersonic, in early October 1969.

Early life

He grew up near

Tarbes Tarbes (; Gascon: ''Tarba'') is a commune in the Hautes-Pyrénées department in the Occitanie region of southwestern France. It is the capital of Bigorre and of the Hautes-Pyrénées. It has been a commune since 1790. It was known as ''Turba'' ...

in south-west France. He attended the Institut supérieur de l'aéronautique et de l'espace until 1952, gaining an engineering degree.

Career

French Air Force

He trained as pilot with the French Air Force, and trained in the US, returning to France in 1954. He was stationed in Creil, when in the air force, and operated in the Dassault Ouragan and

Dassault Mystère IV The Dassault MD.454 Mystère IV is a 1950s French fighter-bomber aircraft, the first transonic aircraft to enter service with the French Air Force. It was used in large-scale combat in the Israeli Air Force during the 1967 Six Day War. Design ...

Research engineer

He left the air force in 1956 and joined the aeronautical research centre (''

Centre d'essais en vol Center or centre may refer to: Mathematics * Center (geometry), the middle of an object * Center (algebra), used in various contexts ** Center (group theory) ** Center (ring theory) * Graph center, the set of all vertices of minimum eccentrici ...

'') at

Brétigny-sur-Orge Brétigny-sur-Orge (, literally ''Brétigny on Orge'') is a commune in the southern suburbs of Paris, France, from the city center. Origin of the city name The name of the settlement is attested as ''Britiniacum'' in 1146, as ''Bretigniacum'' ...

in 1957, and also worked at the research centre's site at Cazaux Air Base. In 1958 he acquired the test pilot licence, when training with EPNER ( École du personnel navigant d'essais et de réception) at the Istres-Le Tubé Air Base on the southern edge of France.

Sud Aviation

He joined

Sud Aviation Sud Aviation (, ''Southern Aviation'') was a French state-owned aircraft manufacturer, originating from the merger of Sud-Est (SNCASE, or ''Société nationale des constructions aéronautiques du sud-est'') and Sud-Ouest (SNCASO or ''Société n ...

in October 1965. He first flew Concorde on 30 March 1969. He last flew on Concorde on 19 April 1985, and remained as a test pilot for Airbus, and retired in 1994. Concorde first went supersonic on Wednesday 1 October 1969 at at for ten minutes over France in Concorde 001.''Times'' Thursday October 2, 1969, page 1 Another test pilot was Jean Franchi. He was responsible for customer crew training of Concorde, and for the flight handling testing of Concorde. He has worked in the field of

cognitive ergonomics Cognitive ergonomics is a scientific discipline that studies, evaluates, and designs tasks, jobs, products, environments and systems and how they interact with humans and their cognitive abilities. It is defined by the International Ergonomics A ...

, with regard to aviation safety and pilot training. He was Secretary General from 1992 to 2004 of the Académie de l'air et de l'espace (AAE).

Books

* ''Facing the Unexpected in Flight: Human Limitations and Interaction with Technology in the Cockpit'', 27 October 2015,

CRC Press The CRC Press, LLC is an American publishing group that specializes in producing technical books. Many of their books relate to engineering, science and mathematics. Their scope also includes books on business, forensics and information tec ...

ISBN 9781498718714 * ''Les hommes de Concorde: Ils ont piloté la légende'', JPO, 14 March 2019, ISBN 237301100X

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pinet, Jean 1929 births Living people Airbus people Cognitive ergonomics Concorde pilots French aerospace engineers French Air and Space Force personnel French military aviators French test pilots People from Tarbes Sud Aviation Supaéro alumni