Chris Yeo joined the RAF in 1965 and trained to be a pilot. He served with the RAF for 13years flying a variety of aircraft. In 1973 he qualified as an IRE while flying the F4 Phantom as a member of 54(F) Squadron. He joined the Phantom OCU in 1974 and was used as a tactics instructor and as an IRE.
In 1975 he went to the Empire Test Pilots School (ETPS) and trained as a test pilot,graduating with the prize for best pilot on the course and sharing the prize for the best preview. He worked as a service test pilot for the last 3 years of his service career,particpating in the early development programmes of the Tornado,Jaguar and Hawk. He was promoted to the rank of Squadron Leader.
He joined British Aerospace as an experimental test pilot in 1978 and worked with them until his retirement in 1997 from fast jet flying. During his time there he was progressively promoted to more senior positions, becoming Chief Test Pilot and eventually Director of Flight Operations.
He flew all variants of the Tornado,Jaguar and Hawk. As well as flight expansion work he conducted system development and production tests. He was project test pilot for the Fly-by-wire Jaguar,Britains first longitudinally unstable aircraft and the first to use a full time digital flight control system. He made the first flight of this aircraft. He also flew a large proportion of the early flights trials of the Experimental Aircraft Programme (EAP) which succesfully demonstrated the new technologies proposed for the Eurofighter.
He particpated in the early development of the Eurofighter/EF2000,making the first flight of the British Aircraft DA2 in April 1994.
On leaving BAE Ssytems, he has worked for FRA flying the Falcon 20 on special mission tasks, instructed at ETPS and worked with Airbus Industrie testing the Airbus A340-500 and 340-600.
He has received many awards and honours during his career and is a member of SETP ad RAeS.
