The late 80s and early 90s was a time when a lot of unusual planes were being developed and, much like the later time when VLJs were the trend and now with the EVTOL craze, most of them never made it past the test phase and in to service. One such plane was the Chichester Miles Leopard. I originally saw this plane at a Farnborough air show when it was displayed by their test pilot – a guy that also flew our Jetstream when I was on my Cranfield flight testing course as part of my degree.
Even at the time, I thought the thing looked ridiculous. It had this angular fuselage shape and was a tiny thing. The prototype was powered by a little turbojet by a company called Penny and Giles. I had never heard of them before, and I imagine the engine came from some sort of missile or other. Supposedly the plan was for it to be replaced by some (slightly) larger turbofan which would have improved performance, reduced fuel consumption and the noise! I don’t think that ever came about.
The Bournemouth Aviation Museum has an airframe on display. Looking at it closer up than I was able to at Farnborough showed just what a strange concept it was. I remember it looking spindly when I saw it previously but now it looks so fragile as to be hard to believe. The fuselage is stripped out, but it doesn’t look like it would have made for a comfortable ride. I will have to do some reading on how the testing went. All I can ponder when I see this is that someone thought it was worth spending a ton of their own money on. I wonder how those around them felt about it.
