Danny, I had missed the "gage" giveaway, almost certainly these pics had a US provenance. Do I remember rightly, that you were never issued with RAF Pilots Notes for the A31/Mk1, I wonder if they ever existed?
Other than the AoI difference, the main difference is that the A-35 was a USAAF aircraft, the A-31 not (operationally that is). Thus the former had official USAAF Pilots Notes, which might have been reproduced in RAF format for the MkIV. So the AP 2024 illustrations could indeed be of the A-35 cockpit.
Now we come to the very last A-31, EZ999. Was it produced after A-35s were in production? Could it be that the "improvements" (other than airframe) required in the A-35 were incorporated into the end of the A-31 production run? Perhaps EZ999 was used as a prototype for the A-35 'internals' before being knocked down and shipped?
Boscombe Down is indeed involved in the production of Pilots Notes, though whatever specific unit actually publishes them these days is no doubt a different one to that in WWII. It might be of some interest that the Chinook 'Mid Life Upgrade' testing at Boscombe Down used a MkI airframe fitted out with the FADECS etc of the MkII, so there is precedence for such arrangements. It was that very Mk1 that BD grounded because the FADECs was found by them to be "positively dangerous" and they urged the RAF to ground their Mk2's too (which were inexplicably already in squadron service!). The RAF didn't, the following day the Mull tragedy happened, and the aftermath is still with us....
Last edited by Chugalug2; 20th Aug 2015 at 08:20.