Ian, forgive me, it was not a Lanc but a Halifax. On the Military thread "Gaining An R.A.F Pilots Brevet In WW11" page 20, post 397
During the day of an Operation we would take our aircraft up on an air test to give all the equipment on board a thorough workout. On one occasion I asked Bill, my Yorkshire Flight Engineer, to feather one of the engines so that I could practice some three engine flying. A rotating propellor, without power, causes enormous drag on the aircraft, so the blades of the propellor of the "dead" engine are turned electrically, so that the leading edge is presented to the airstream, This is called "feathering" as in rowing, when the blades of the oar are turned in similar fashion so that they do not cause drag in the water. We always carried out air tests at an altitude of 5,000ft. or more and it was just as well as when Bill pressed the button of the Port outer engine (The engines are numbered from 1 to 4 looking from the tail to the nose, so the Port outer was No.1). and "Bingo" ...all four engines promptly feathered themselves and, of course, stopped. Bill, the unflappable Yorkshireman , said "Bloody Quiet up here ", leaned forward and pressed the same button and all four engines unfeathered themselves. On the post mortem, later, it was found that a drop of solder from some electrical work above had neatly fused all four circuits together.
The same chap posts on page 54, post 1068. The account gives some feeling to the time in which your Father operated, and of the Mosquito.
A very poorly taught and little known factor in assymetrical engine flying is "Safety Speed " If, with your wheels down and full flap, you open up full power on the good side be it one or two engines and assuming a complete loss of power on the other then there is a speed at which you can no longer keep the aircraft straight. That, very simply put, is your Safety Speed and if you let the aircraft get below that speed you will start turning towards the lost engines, you will start losing height in the turn due to the added lift required and you will stall and lose control of the aircraft. It was, probably , the cause of most of the accidents at OTU's and HCU's during assymetrical flying because frankly, the Instructors themselves were not sufficiently trained to know this and therefore very little, if any, instruction was given until much later when Bomber Command Instructors School came into being and , very quickly, taught recognition of Safety Speed as being of vital importance to the people who were going to be Instructors. When I had my crash in a Mosquito , returning from a raid on a German Airfield in Holland on one engine I am now sure that it was because I let the speed drop too low and below the Safety speed and was unable to stop it from turning and crashing into the trees that saved our lives by lowering us more gently to the ground. I had never had the words "Safety Speed" given to me in any of the instruction that I had been given.
You will note in the pilot notes that the engine out procedures give one a feeling that the aircraft was to be treated with the GREATEST respect and CARE. The copy is of 1950 vintage though, and whether the notes in your Fathers day noted the same may be in question, particularly given the quote above by the Mosquito pilot about "safety speed". Perhaps the 1950 copy was a result of lessons learnt through such accidents as your Fathers.
With respect to reliability of official accounts and designations of equipment, I found it interesting that the only place I've seen the Mosquito Mk. VI referred to as a "6" (Arabic rather than Roman) is the official pilot notes. World is full of surprises - and you learn something new every day.