Wing Commander Wing commander (Wg Cdr in the RAF, the IAF, and the PAF, WGCDR in the RNZAF and RAAF, formerly sometimes W/C in all services) is a senior commissioned rank in the British Royal Air Force and air forces of many countries which have historical ...

James Leonard Dell OBE (23 August 1924 – 25 March 2008) was a British

test pilot A test pilot is an aircraft pilot with additional training to fly and evaluate experimental, newly produced and modified aircraft with specific maneuvers, known as flight test techniques.Stinton, Darrol. ''Flying Qualities and Flight Testin ...

. He is best remembered for his involvement in the

BAC TSR-2 The British Aircraft Corporation TSR-2 is a cancelled Cold War strike and reconnaissance aircraft developed by the British Aircraft Corporation (BAC), for the Royal Air Force (RAF) in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The TSR-2 was designed ...

test programme, being one of only three test pilots to fly the aircraft before the project was scrapped in 1965. James Dell (known as Jimmy Dell) was born in

Liverpool Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough in Merseyside, England. With a population of in 2019, it is the 10th largest English district by population and its metropolitan area is the fifth largest in the United Kingdom, with a populat ...

in 1924 and joined the

Royal Air Force The Royal Air Force (RAF) is the United Kingdom's air and space force. It was formed towards the end of the First World War on 1 April 1918, becoming the first independent air force in the world, by regrouping the Royal Flying Corps (RFC) an ...

in 1942. After pilot training in Rhodesia he became a flight instructor. Dell remained in the RAF until 1959, retiring with the rank of wing commander, to join English Electric as their deputy chief test pilot. Dell appeared in a 1962 episode of "Look at Life", in which his work as a test pilot is portrayed. Dell, along with chief test pilot Roland Beamont, was responsible for the TSR-2 test programme until it was controversially cancelled by the then Labour Government in 1965. Following Beamont's retirement in 1965, Dell became BAC's chief test pilot, and was later involved in the Jaguar and

Panavia Tornado The Panavia Tornado is a family of twin-engine, variable-sweep wing multirole combat aircraft, jointly developed and manufactured by Italy, the United Kingdom and West Germany. There are three primary Tornado variants: the Tornado IDS ( in ...

projects. He retired as director of flight operations for

British Aerospace British Aerospace plc (BAe) was a British aircraft, munitions and defence-systems manufacturer. Its head office was at Warwick House in the Farnborough Aerospace Centre in Farnborough, Hampshire. Formed in 1977, in 1999 it purchased Marcon ...

in 1989. Jimmy Dell died on 25 March 2008.

References

Obituary: ''Times''
* https://web.archive.org/web/20100125160620/http://www.airsceneuk.org.uk/hangar/2006/tsr2/tsr2.htm {{DEFAULTSORT:Dell, Jimmy 1924 births 2008 deaths Military personnel from Liverpool Royal Air Force officers British World War II pilots English test pilots Officers of the Order of the British Empire British expatriates in Southern Rhodesia