Walter
Thank you for another succinct and excellent account. Were you given instrument training on the Link Trainer before you flew the Blenheim? Did you have red panel lighting in your 'icy' Blenheim cockpit or did you rely on the luminous paint on the instruments? As Danny says, we newbies in our comfy, easy-handling Pipers, with all sorts of electronics, can have little idea of what the WW2 novice had to cope with until the black boxes go wrong, of course
Interesting to hear you had ground simulators for radar training, I had not heard of these. Just another example of how fortunate we are to enjoy such descriptions from the men who were there.
Danny, I think the caging knobs disappeared in the 1960s, at least on civilian aircraft. Subsequent instruments seem to manage without them.
Gyro caging
Fifty years ago my instructor Desmond, who had flown Catalinas from Lough Erne in Northern Ireland, drilled me relentlessly on the importance of pre-flight checks and gyro caging/setting. As a grim lesson he explained that flying-boat gyros had to be caged until the last moment to avoid damage during movements on rough water. One departing patrol failed to uncage for the takeoff run and climbed into low cloud; under full power, the Catalina veered gently left and hit Magho mountain a mile or so away. The crew rest forever in St. John's Churchyard at nearby Irvinestown, and fragments of alloy can still be found near the summit of Magho.