Bouncing off the end stops
John,
I, too, worked at 390 MU in the mid 60s! Unfortunately, I was assigned to the DME bench - Rebecca 4 and 8 - which I found to be rather brain numbing.
Before being posted to Singapore I did some work on AI-17 at Leeming and Waterbeach hence my interest in the Javelin. I thought it was a great looking aircraft with bags of character. True, it probably couldn't fight its way out of a wet paper bag, but when it came to performing night and/or all-weather interceptions of bomber size aircraft it proved to be a marked improvement over the Meteor NF11/14 which it replaced.
Anyway, I agree with you that AI-17 was a dogs breakfast and going by some of the ex-Javelin aircrew I have had the privilege of talking to, it was inferior to the American built AI-22 which was fitted to the even marks of Javelin.
Wasn't Singapore great in the 60s.