Chichester-Miles Leopard

G-BKRL Chichester-Miles Consultants Leopard (cn 001) is one of two prototype aircraft which used to be displayed at the Bournemouth Aviation Museum. In February 2005 she joined her sister G-BRNM which had already been on display following the termination of testing. G-BKRL spent time many months in storage not far away at Old Sarum - near Salisbury.

When the Museum had to relocate out of the hangar on the airport in 2008, G-BRNM was transported to the Midland Air Museum at Coventry. G-BKRL remains on display at the ‘new’ Museum.

The Leopard led the way for the present day series of Very Light Jets but it proved to be before its time. Designed by Ian Chichester-Miles in the early 1980’s, it was to be a high performance four seat business jet powered by two Noel Penny NPT301 turbojet engines. Prototype G-BKRL was displayed statically at Farnborough Air Show in September 1986, although it did not fly until 12 December 1988 from RAE Bedford.

Test flying from Cranfield revealed the aircraft to be underpowered and this was not helped when Noel Penny went out of business in October 1991. So a second aircraft was built, this time powered by two 700 lb thrust Williams International FJX-1 engines. The airframe was strengthened, incorporating a pressurised cabin and an improved undercarriage.

G-BRNM was displayed at Farnborough in September 1996, but its first flight was not until 9 April 1997. As part of its sales campaign it was taken to America in July 1999 for display at the EAA Oshkosh Show. Chichester-Miles had a small workshop at Old Sarum, but the Leopard was unable to fly from the airfields grass surface. So further trials were undertaken from Bournemouth in the late 1990’s, with the aircraft initially based with FRA.

The Leopard was intended to cruise at M.0.76 at a height of 45,000 ft. At this height it was above the majority of airliners, whose captains would query a fighter like aircraft climbing past them to great height whilst on test flights.

G-BRNM moved to the Bournemouth Aviation Museum’s hangar in March 2003 to continue trials, which still showed problems with the engines. It was planned to re-engine the Leopard with FJX-2 engines, or the later FJ-22, but this never happened. The project dragged on for a while until the decision was taken early in 2005 to give up further development. Had there been a production version, this would have been the Leopard Four, whilst a proposed six seat version would have been the Leopard Six.

Although the Leopard did not successfully enter production, the test aircraft were the reality of an aeronautical engineers dream utilising state of the art modern materials. As one reporter once said ‘It’s not often you stand next to a luxury twin engined jet and look down at it’.