UAM, I would have said:
1) Good point. Very important in a training aircraft.
2) NDB is very important. I have done at least a dozen NDB/DME or DME only approaches (from vectors and procedural) in the last 3 months. I first learnt these things in the Bulldog although now I fly 737 - no idea how often the military use NDB but its still common in the EU civilian world. The skills involved in NDB work are of a far higher standard than their VOR or GPS brethern. If you can cope with a wobbly dip-infested needle you can cope with anything else aviation is going to throw at you in terms of non-visual approaches.
3) Hmmm, perhaps unfair to compare the Bulldog at the end of its life against a new aircraft fresh out of the wrapper. The Scottish Aviation product was built to the proverbial brick out house philosophy and if you take its service life as a whole I think its reliability was good. If you look at the last Grob product the RAF purchased ( Grob 109b motor glider for the Air Cadets ) it was plagued with quality and reliability issues after its honeymoon period... We shall have to see how shiny those plastics after 20 odd years on the Tutor.
4) I'm sure the Tutor with its better Power Weight ratio and higher G clearance is the better hooligan manchine.
5) Part of the Finesse of Aeros is to minimise height loss when that is a challenge. Any old fool, me included, can hurl an Extra 300 around. The dark arts of energy management that the Bulldog demanded were valuable lessons in themselves.
6) Yep.
7) Oh do come off it. The Bulldog after modification did not have an irrecoverable spin if correctly loaded.
I am sure the Tutor is in many ways a fine ab initio aircraft. Just as the Bulldog was.
I hope it has such a good service life as its forebear.
I just wish they had bought the Zlin 242 instead - much nicer than Tutor or Bulldog I am told (haven't flown Tutor).
Cheers,
WWW