Having just read Chugalug2's comments upon co-pilot solos in Hastings brought back memories of those challenging days! Chug and I, having navigated our course through Cranwell, and then Oakington in the bitterly cold and prolonged winter of 1962/63, found ourselves on No 103 Hastings course at RAF Thorney Island.
My pilots flying log book records that I, still a somewhat new Pilot Officer, set off on my first 'solo' in the left hand seat of Hastings 1A No 570 on the 3rd of April 1963 accompanied by another Pilot Officer co-pilot (also in co-pilot training although he had previously been a Second Pilot for a tour), a Squadron Leader navigator, and a Master Flight Engineer, Air Electronics Officer and Air Quartermaster. With all that expertise behind me, what could possibly go wrong?
Well, I flew the two take-offs and landings (with a taxi round after the first landing, never an easy exercise as the aircraft tended to expend pneumatic pressure rather too quickly) without losing control and ploughing through the long grass - much to my relief. Indeed, unlike many of my fellow co-pilots in training, whilst under training I didn't lose control on take-off or landing at all - until my final handling test when I managed to deviate from the runway (just a little - or maybe a tad more than just a little)!
But yes, anyone who could spare the time would transport wicker chairs out from the offices to observe co-pilot solos in the expectation that we would make a nonsense handling the heavy machine at some point. Which reminds me, when my instructor, a Welshman of some distinction, was taxying back to the dispersal, as we passed by a hangar we observed an RAF bus parked fairly close to the taxiway. I noticed that the driver appeared to be dozing, but suddenly he awoke and without taking his eyes off us for an instant, switched on the engine, engaged reverse gear and when straight back - into a car parked immediately behind him! At the subsequent Board of Inquiry that my instructor attended, the driver allegedly said, "I reversed - in order to avoid an accident"!
As far as I can recall, my patient instructor had at another time been Duty Officer one night when a non-pilot managed to get airborne in a Varsity (or some such). He telephoned the Air Ministry and spoke to their Duty Officer saying, "There's going to be an accident!" (Try saying that in Welsh dialect). And there was.