harrym, I know exactly what you mean. The RAF seems to have always had a penchant for cluttering up its cockpits with extraneous kit of dubious worth.
The Hercules Mk1 had the Decca Flight Log which, providing you were in SE England, the Gulf, or Newfoundland would obligingly tell you where you were, providing you had first told it where it was, having selected, from many, the appropriate chart on the roller map and of course the correct key. We seriously proposed this as the ICAO world wide nav aid for controlled airspace in place of the US VOR system!
The Hastings Mk 4 had Fed's Zero Reader. Again one had to manually input the required course selection on a separate controller before it could tell you how to turn on to it. It was yet another flight instrument to scan, and until the Flight Director superimposed these instructions directly onto the ADI (especially the combined V command bars of the Collins FD) was in my opinion, and with all due respect to Phil the Greek, an unnecessary complication. Like the Decca Flight Log a bit too clever for its own good!
IBB, what a varied selection of aircraft in your Dad's log book, any one of which most here would give their eye teeth to have a go on now! How simple were one's comings and goings in those days. 35 mins Air Test and type check and bingo, you are now on a Comm Flt!
Aren't Hummingfrog's US Diesels impressive? Given this was the 40's and BR had to wait for the 50's to get the feeble (well other than the Deltas) asthmatic ones that replaced our steam, they did rather have the edge. Of course we were broke and had to learn for ourselves how to do it as importing in dollars was not possible, but a Chieftain or Zephyr to Glasgow or Edinburgh would have been quite something...
MPN11, not only are the Corporation dust-carts of the RAF less glamorous, they are also far more fun! I certainly enjoyed life on the MRT Squadrons far more than on the supposedly glamorous Comets, Britannias or 10's. As for sitting on a Lincolnshire ORP all day for a living... what? Oh, right, I'll stop right there then!