 Fortunately, some farm labourers had time to get into the fuselage and extricate Summers and his flight engineer before a major fire started.What made him the best at what he was, and why he was predominantly chosen above other test pilots, was his unique ability to identify issues with any aircraft just by sitting in the cockpit and listening to the sound the aircraft made in flight.In his career, he clocked up over 5,600 flying hours, which is the equivalent of taking off in an aircraft on 1 January and landing at the end of October.