While walking through the quiet grounds of Boxgrove Priory in Sussex, Brookfield Aviation’s CEO stumbled across the grave of Billy Fiske, an American combat fighter pilot and Olympic bobsledder. Fiske was the first American pilot to die in combat for the Royal Air Force during Second World War. As the 85th anniversary of Fiske’s death approaches on the 17th of August, his remarkable story deserves to be remembered. Born in Chicago on the 4th of June 1911, Billy Fiske was the son of a wealthy...

Flight Lieutenant Alan Pollock, the famous RAF pilot who amazed the country in 1968 by flying his Hawker Hunter jet through London’s Tower Bridge, passed away on 1 July 2025, aged 89. The Famous Flight Pollock’s most famous act, flying under Tower Bridge, was not a stunt for fame; it was a protest. Frustrated by the government’s failure to recognise the 50th anniversary of the Royal Air Force, he decided to take matters into his own hands. On 5 April 1968, he broke formation, pretended...