Hi Ray,
When I first started instructing in the 'Dog in 1989, it was as you described. An ancient crystal tuned UHF box (12 channels?) and rather an old VHF set. Navaids? UDF and VDF if you were lucky. No SSR either. Tell that to 't lads of today...
When the RAF finally scraped together enough cash to fit the avionic upgrade, we had a good UHF, still the old VHF - but 't looksherry of VOR/ILS/DME! Which worked very well. Later, some ar$e of an engineer alleged that the sticking ILS needles weren't a problem as the ILS had never been intended for use in anger
- so we asked "In that case, why is a glideslope receiver and antenna system fitted? STFU and fix the damn thing, you oily fingered idiot!"
Those who flew the 'Dog at 2400/19 probably found it gutless - but most of us flew it with everything forward for most of the time and it went well enough. Unless you flew it with the canopy open, of course, when it flew as though it had the handbrake on!
I have only flown the Fruitfly in its T67A version and found the handling OK, but the roll rate abysmal. I'm told Das Teutor is even worse...
A 200 bhp Chippie with a wobbly prop, UHF, VHF and a GPS - now that
would be nice!