I doubt that Les Page would even have tried to overhaul the engine of LA 607. I remember asking Peter Thomas why the Tempest could not be run, and he informed me that the engine had actually seized solid. Every time the a/c was moved it was a question of manhandling – or often ‘adolescent handling’ with Peter Thomas’ children (Jessica as well!) joining volunteers such as Ian Juggins, Glynn Tandy, Mike Hayden, Tony Southern (later of CARG) under the guidance of Norman ‘Chippy’ Carpenter, pushing the collection out of the hangar and then hitching them up by draw-bar to an old red David Brown tractor. Taking them out to the static display line on Air Display days meant they suffered the indignity of travelling backwards round the peri-track, towed by the tail-wheel.

A lot of aircraft were fitted with the Koffmann starter system, but the Tempest had a Trolleyac point above the pilot’s ‘mounting stirrup’ which popped out at the trailing root of the port wing.

I remember discussing the possibility of G-ACUU with Peter FM Thomas at Skyfame in the sixties. He told me that even though the engineering involved was no real problem (Cheetah engines were relatively easy to obtain in those days) the then Board of Trade described the aircraft as a condemned type (Not eligible for either C of A or even permit to fly. The same applied to the Pou du Ciel. The problem with the Oxford, as I recall, was that they would have required a dismantling of the aircaft to reglue all the glued joints. I remember that the Oxford used to pop and crack, especially during turns, as the glued joints ‘came unstuck’. Keeping aircraft flying in those days was not just a matter of spares, engineering, money and skill, but also a perpetual fight with bureaucracy, something which really used to annoy PFMT.

Grame, ExSkyfame