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Old 3rd March 2013, 13:53
Johnny .45 Johnny .45 is offline
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Actual crew configuration of Do 217

What is the actual crew configuration of the Do 217 bomber? There must be people here who have read authoritative books and can state this as a fact. Specifically, was the crewman in the rear, "B-Stand" position the Radio Operator or the Flight Engineer? Wikipedia used to say that the Flight Engineer sat in the rear, and the radio operator was the man who sat behind the bombardier and operated the lateral and ventral guns. This didn't match some things I had read, and the fact that in most photos the equipment in that position looks much more like radio equipment than a flight engineers dials, levers and knobs. See: www.barradale.net/rc/do217n2.html for detailed photos of rear position. At http://www.swannysmodels.com/Do217M.html there is shots of a model being built, where again the rear position looks more like radio equipment and the (vague) stuff on the side of the cockpit looks closer to the controls a flight engineer would be given.
Can anyone tell me FOR SURE which is correct? Wikipedia now says the radio-operator is in the rear but it's not cited, and there are still other sites that say that it's the flight engineer (90% of which are word-for-word clones of the old wikipedia article, but plenty of others which talk about how "the radio operator had to man three guns all by himself"). Did they get their info from Wikipedia, and is it accurate info?
Still, it's one of the things that bothers me, how difficult it can be to discover simple facts like this with certainty. If I wasn't poor, I could afford good books of my own, but I am, and the library doesn't seem to carry books of this type (oddly).
Help a guy out. Does the equipment in the photos not look like radio equipment to you? I've never seen a flight engineers position without gauges for the engines, fuel levels, etc, etc.
I'd like to know for sure, because if Wikipedia is wrong, it would be nice to fix it. If not, it's too bad that it was wrong when all these people copied it.
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