At upside-down, and all forms of stunt flying, he was superlative. Once I flew him round a race circuit so that he could memories the turns, and he rebuked me for spinning.
"I never spin," he said, "because the machine is out of control, and I don't like machines out of control —even for a second."
In 1931 he was, at the age of 22, the "baby" of the Schneider Trophy team. Unfortunately he was pulled out to replace a test pilot who had been killed in an accident, I could not look Leech in the face," said Squadron Leader Orlebar, who had to break the news.
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.