The Whirlwind blade being removed is one of three blades that had to have their tips replaced due to Joe Bowell's cack handed operation of the tracking flag!
It was not a case of hitting all three tips during one ground run, no,... he managed to clip them one at a time in three ground runs!!
All of this happened after he stopped me doing the tracking, telling me that he was the only approved person at Redhill allowed to track blades.
I subsequently did the ferry flight to Warri with that aircraft.
I was present the day the blade got slammed in the hangar doors.
The problem with the old wartime hangar doors was that small stones would jam the bottom track, so when the doors wouldn't close, everybody grabbed a long screwdriver, and bent over cleaning out the tracks, followed by an attempt to get the door to close the last 18 inches.
This proceedure was repeated at least four times, each time the door closed a little more
Happy days!
Tony