I've just received a reply from my Stirling flight engineer. He's a lovely man by the name of Tommy Knox - served on 149 and 199 Squadrons, in main Force first but later engaged on 'special duties' including parachuting supplies to French partisans once the Stirlings had been replaced in front-line bombing squadrons.
There are not many specifics here - no radio chatter or anything. But hopefully there are a few useful bits and pieces amongst these. Here are the highlights.
Crew positions:
All of the Stirlings as far as I know used the bomb aimer as second dickie; he had nothing to do anyway; unless it was mapr eading til we got to the target. The engineer panel, temps pressures petrol gauges & fuse box were on the starboard side, just under the astro dome and above the flare chute. That was between the nav. facing port and the WOP facing forward., all behind the pilots who were on a higher level.
Fuel system [my brackets]:
We had fourteen petrol tanks + all their controls were on the front of the main spar, along with supercharger controls + the controls to jettison fuel from the main tanks. On the Stirling all the priming [before engine start] was done inside by the engineer at a point on the port side just behind the WOP. [This differed from the Lancaster - a ground mechanic needed to climb up into the wheel well to prime the engines on that aircraft!]
Other bits and pieces:
Another thing that's not generally known is that all services, flaps undercarraige + bomb doors were all electric; onluy the turrets were hydraulic + of course the brakes were pneumatic. Remember on our initial circuits + bumps, we ran out of air + had to get a bottle from the ground staff for me to recharge the system!
Radios:
I had little to do with when we joined the circuit apart from listening to the chat of the pilot + control tower. Didn't have much to do with the radio side of things. I know that Dave [Tommy's wireless op] had fixed times to listen into base, but he was left in his own little world. He did help me chuck leaflets out the rear escape hatch on low levels over France + help undo the packets of Window that I had to push out the flare chute!
The Stirling was "my favourite aeroplane", he writes. "For some reason, not many people say that!".
I will try to write a reply with a few more questions. James has asked for some detail about fuel remaining at the end of an operation, and what lights might have been on. Does anyone have anything else they would like me to add?
Adam