Peter Twiss

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Lionel Peter Twiss (born 23 July 1921) OBE DSC and bar is a British pilot, who held the World Air Speed Record.

Educated at Sherborne School, he had been rejected by the Fleet Air Arm as a pilot but when the Second World War broke out, he was accepted as a Naval Airman Second Class. He served initially on catapult ships flying Hawker Hurricanes. During the Malta convoys in 1942 he flew with 807 Squadron, firstly on Fairey Fulmars, and then Supermarine Seafires from the carrier HMS Furious. For these operations he received the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC). During Operation Torch, the Allied landings in Algeria and Morocco, he added a bar to his DSC. He then flew long range intruder operations over Germany from Ford Naval Air Station. During the war Twiss began to get opportunities to fly new aircraft and began test flying in 1944 in the United States. By the end of the war he was a lieutenant-commander.

In 1946, Twiss joined Fairey Aviation as a test pilot and flew many of the company's aircraft, including the Fairey Primer, Fairey Gannet, Fairey Firefly, and the Fairey Rotodyne compound-helicopter. He worked two years on the Fairey Delta 2, a supersonic delta-winged research plane. On 10 March 1956 this aircraft flown by Twiss broke the World Speed Record raising it to 1,132 mph (1811 km/h), an increase of some 300 mph (480 km/h) over the record set in year before by an F-100 Super Sabre, and thus became the first aircraft to exceed 1,000 mph in level flight.

In 1959 Fairey Aviation was sold to Westland Aircraft a helicopter manufacturer, which was not Twiss's area. Twiss joined Fairey Marine in 1960 and was responsible for development and sales of day-cruisers. He appeared in From Russia with Love driving one of the company's speedboats. He also appeared in the film Sink the Bismark in which he flew a Fairey Swordfish. Today Twiss is a member of Lasham Gliding Society.