Early 70's I was an ATC cadet and used to pitch up in uniform at the ATC college at Hurn Airport where the CAAFU Doves provided live ATC training for the controller cadets. You used to just wander through to the the pilots crew room/office. No security in those days! Mostly I would sit in the cabin because an ATCO cadet would occupy the right hand seat and off we go and fly radar patterns directed by the ATCO cadets to give them practise, simulators were in their infancy then. Must have been quite interesting for the actual ATCO's at Hurn, fitting their own traffic in with the training Doves on separate frequencies, I have no idea what system they used but suspect it would have been quite interning at times, I think they tended to be vectored for the little used cross runway.
My highlight from these time was being able on occasion to sit in the right hand seat if the cadet did not turn up, yippee! On one of these occasions we were out over Bournemouth bay being vectored by the cadet, for the radar pattern and the pilot turned and said 'Ever seen one of these on one?' I shook my head. Within seconds after a swift bit of lever fiddling the right hand engine was silent and stationary! We continued around the radar pattern with the cadet, and indeed all on the ground unaware of what was happening. A few minutes later the prop was unfeatered and we were back to normal. The memory of that day are still fresh and it was my highlight of all the flights I did in the Dove that summer. A fabulous memory of a beautiful aircraft.
