One of the ex Connellan Herons CLV was also ex Luftwaffe. I was told that during stripping of the paintwork on CLV, the Maltese Cross was quite visible on the rear fuselage.
From a performance point of view, the Riley Heron with the IO -540 Lycomings was a much better performer than the Queen 6 powered aircraft. The empty weight of the Riley Herons were a lot lighter, because the Lycomings were a wet sump engine and totally made out of alloys, where as the Gypsy Queens had a large proportion of steel in the construction (built like a battleship) and the bare engine weighed much more than the Lycoming, without the oil tankand other plumbing.
From memory, MTOW was around 7.0t. Speeds were V1 65 Vr 70 V2 74 Vyse 91 kts. Any engine failure was left until acceleration altitude (400') to sort out. In fact I had an inboard fail passing V2 and the FO didn't notice anything other that it was climbing just a little slower (which he put down to being at MTOW) He was surprised when the failure was pointed out with the suggestion we might return. The Gpsy powered Herons had two position propellors, where as the Riley had fully feathering 3 bladed propellors. These were controlled by electric pitch actuators. It was like playing the piano some days.
Planning gave a TAS 165kts 48 imp gall/hr. You could put on 15 adult pax, 365 kg baggage in the rear and 100 kgs in the nose, and fly for 4 hrs with reserves. 3 engine cruise was 140 kts and 36 gall/hr, which gave a slightly better nm/gallon.
Flaps were pneumatic and had two positions T/O and Land. The landing deflection was 65 degrees and to enable it to meet the baulk approach climb, a rapid exhaust valve was fitted which retracted the flaps from landing to take-off in 2.5 seconds.
The Viscount bears a striking likeness of the Heron. In photos of the cockpit of the Halifax bomber, one can see the identical throttle levers as fitted to the Heron