I wrote to my old squadron commander extolling the virtues of these blades and as a result they found out that there was a set sitting in a hangar at Boscombe Down, and had been for some time. These were transported up to Odiham, fitted to an aircraft and the trials and conversions started there.
Boscombe had nothing to do with it.
Fareastdriver,
I'm referring to a later episode, it occurred in the mid to late 1980s.
"New" (well overdue) engines-off trials on a plastic bladed aircraft resulted in a damaged airframe. It proved what some of us already thought - if the Puma's tail "stinger" touched the ground, rather than preventing tail rotor damage, it was likely to pivot around the rear bracket, pulling off the riveted bracket attachment at the front end. It would then swing upwards and get tangled up with the tail rotor blades.
IIRC, back then the FRCs hadn't then been changed from the advice given for the old metal bladed aircraft i.e. a flare of up to 27 degrees nose up was advocated.
By then we all knew that the plastic bladed aircraft could be flown much like a big Gazelle and didn't need such an aggressive flare, due to the much better performance of the blades.