Lionel Peter Twiss (23 July 1921 – 31 August 2011) was a British test pilot who holds the World Air Speed Record as the first man to fly a jet aircraft faster than . Early life He was born in Lindfield, Sussex and lived with his grandmother while his parents were in India and Burma. He was the grandson of an admiral and the son of Colonel Dudley Cyril Twiss an army officer. Twiss went to school at Haywards Heath and later at Sherborne School. In 1938, he was employed as an apprentice tea-taster by Brooke Bond in London, before returning to the family farm near Salisbury. Aviation career Military Rejected as a pilot by the Fleet Air Arm, he was accepted as a Naval Airman Second Class on the outbreak of the Second World War. After training at 14 Elementary and Reserve Flying Training School, Castle Bromwich, he went on to fly Fairey Battles and Hawker Harts. He underwent operational training at RNAS Yeovilton flying Blackburn Rocs, Blackburn Skuas and Gloster Gladiators. His next posting was at the School of Army Co-operation at Andover, flying Bristol Blenheims as a twin conversion. He was then posted to 771 Squadron in the Orkney Islands, flying a variety of naval aircraft on various duties, including met observations at 12000 ft in winter in the open cockpit of a Fairey Swordfish, and target-towing duties. He then served with the Merchant Ship Fighter Unit on catapult ships flying Hawker Hurricanes. These missions required the pilot to ditch or bale out, in the expectation of being recovered by a passing ship. During the Malta Convoys in 1942, he flew Fairey Fulmars with 807 Squadron, from the carrier HMS Argus. For his service, he was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) in June 1942. Later in the year, the squadron converted to Supermarine Seafires flying from for the Operation Torch landings in North Africa. During the Allied landings in Algeria and Morocco, he added a bar to his DSC, gazetted in March 1943. By this time, he had shot down one Italian aircraft (a Fiat CR.42 on 14 May 1942) and damaged another. He then flew long-range intruder operations over Germany from RNAS Ford, developing night fighter tactics with the RAF's Fighter Interception Unit. Ford also acted as an operational research unit and so Twiss flew missions over occupied Europe, in Bristol Beaufighters and de Havilland