If I remember rightly, XX897 was the aircraft in which we modified the fuel system to cool the test radar. I can't remember the details but effectively fuel recirculated from the fuel flow proportioners back into the tanks via a heat exchanger and the refuel gallery. I can remember doing all the calculations on flow rates, pressure drops, heat transfer and fuel temperature limits. Control of the system was not automatic and required some pilot monitoring and balancing of the individual tank contents by switching of the intertank transfer and cross feed valves.
Our boss at the time was a gentleman called Ray Gadd, who was the Chief Mechanical Systems Engineer at Brough. During the war he was a Halifax rear gunner and was shot down as a result of the aircraft losing both engines on one side of the aircraft and fuel from the other side. Had the pilot been able to manage the system and transfer the fuel across they could have made it back to England instead of ditching in the channel and spending several years as prisoners of war.
As a result of that experience Ray was absolutely fanatical about the Buccaneer fuel system control and if you wanted to make any changes to it, as we did on XX 897 you had to have a bloody good explanation of what you wanted to do. You had to be able to explain every detail of what would change and how and why, all the possible failure modes and whether the pilot would be able to manage it all. I remember my colleague Eric Lewis went down, I think to RRE Pershore, to do the tests of the modified system and, as an example of some of the bizzarre things you remember from way back, he said the pilot who was involved was a really little chap who looked as though his feet wouldn't reach the rudder pedals. However he was a really bright guy and very switched on in his understanding of the systems. I can't remember any subsequent feedback on the flight trials so I guess the fuel system changes worked.