The reason you could see the blades was because they skimmed just above the cabin roof. Around 1971 Digger Barrell invited me to Northolt for a drive in one of 32 Sqn's examples. It was only six years since I had last flown it so it wasn't any trouble but I had a 3R duck as the blades passed over the cabin roof.
The last time I ran a Leonides was in the Provost T1 that was used as a taxiing instructor at the Maintenance Unit in Aldergrove. It had an instructional number but the underside of the wings told me it was WV494 which I had flown at Tern Hill. The MU was closing down and the Provost was up for disposal. As far as I could see it was fully serviceable apart from the hood seal and the clock.
The run was in the middle of all their airframes outside their hangar and we were pointing directly at a Pembroke . The run was super, it passed all the tests and it was gratifying to see the blue flame when we had it up to 3,000 and +8 boost. A thought occurred to me that when I had last done this at Tern Hill we had chained chocks and two airmen slumped across the tailplane to stop it nosing over: Not this Time !
I believe it is now in Muscat labelled XF 868.
Last edited by Fareastdriver; 25th January 2019 at 21:09.