Peter Duffey

Peter Duffey is the only pilot to have flown the Comet 1, Comet 4 and Concorde. He also flew a host of other military and civil aircraft ranging from the de Havilland DH.89 Dragon Rapide through to the Consolidated B-24 Liberator and the Boeing 707. After the war he flew for Portsmouth Aviation, then Scottish Airlines and later British South American Airways. In 1949, BSAA merged with BOAC and Duffey transferred to BOAC as a co-pilot, initially on the Argonaut and later the Comet 1. When the Comets were grounded, following a spate of accidents, he flew Argonauts and Stratocruisers before moving to the DC-7C on which he obtained his first command. He later flew the much-improved Comet 4 and became a training captain. In 1965, with the retirement of the Comets, he became a training captain on the Boeing 707, and in 1975 he was one of British Airways’ first six Concorde training captains. He retired in 1980 and emigrated, with his wife, to Canada where he requalified as a flying instructor and executive jet pilot.