Gladiator instrument panels.

[Selwyn]

I remember reading somewhere that the instrument panels on Export order Gladiators were of a different configuration to the RAF instrument panel. Apparently export Gladiators did not feature the RAF standard 6 instrument blind flying panel.

This would mean that the countries that ordered Aircraft pre war and then had them supplemented from RAF stocks when the war started would have had different panels.

Can anyone confirm this?

Selwyn

[Work In Progress]

As an export client you could order whatever you wanted (such as the infamous working-backwards French throttles on may US-built fighters in the late post-war period, or radial-engined Hart / Fury variants). And while we now know the 6-pack as a near-universal standard, back then it was very much a minority sport, somewhat experimental and not necessarily what other people wanted to do at all. If you were ordering fighters for, say, China, you would order whatever instrument panel configuration your pilots were used to.

Once war broke out and people started getting orders diverted from one country to another in various emergency deals, all forms of standardisation fell by the wayside for a while, and for reasonably good reasons of military expediency. (Expedient or not, I still would not have wanted to go near one of those ex-French Martlets with the backward throttles. But then I have the luxury of people not trying to bomb me or my friends and family.)

if you were a foreign air force with pre-war Glads to your own spec, and then acquired some ex RAF ones, you could either leave your overpaid sky-gods to cope, or if the shrill whining became unbearable, then re-arrange the panels locally.

Frankly it is all pretty much the same today. The Bulldog is a case in point - I've flown ones that are ex-RAF (usually the most shagged out you can imagine), ex-Ghana ones, ex-Hong Kong ones, and ex-Swedish ones, and while the basic 6 may be a constant, outside that they all have different instrument and control layouts - sometimes in quite subtle ways that could catch you out if you were not paying attention.

[Vulcanicity]

I believe this is the cockpit of the survivor in Sweden, which would confirm that the export Gladiators didn't have the blind-flying panel.

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/16/Gloster_Gladiator_Cockpit.jpg

[Work In Progress]

Well, strictly speaking it shows us that one didn't have an RAF standard panel, and we might reasonably extrapolate that specification to others from the same Swedish order, but it doesn't necessarily tell us anything about other export models to different customers.

Incidentally while it's a long way from the ergonomics we expect these days you would be able to fly blind in that Gladiator, as it does have a gyro turn needle and a reasonably sensitive VSI.