Beaufighter Nightfighter colour help

[Silver Fox]

I've volunteered to build a Tamiya Beaufighter as a night fighter for a display at the local museum. I have built the kit as a torpedo bomber, a Coastal Command machine and an Operation Firedog participant  before but I have some specific questions regarding an overall black nightfighter.

 

What colours are:

a) the wheel bays, the kit instuctions say interior green, but black seems more logical?

b) the undercarriage legs, again the top halves are interior green and the lower sections natural metal/silver.

c)  the cockpit and observers station, the instructions again say interior green but black makes more sense even if the non visible parts are interior green.

 

Any advice would be gratefully received.

 

 

[Graham Boak]

I'd stick with the instructions here.   RAF cockpits didn't go black until the jet period.  Given that the wheel bays and undercarriage legs are completely hidden by the closed doors, why use black there?

[Seawinder]

I just built one of those. I found a photo somewhere of a nightfighter cockpit, and it definitely looked black, so I went with that.

[Silver Fox]

Thank you both for taking the time to reply. 

 

I also looked at the references I used for a Lancaster I built a while ago which stated that  the cockpit area was black thought the rest of the interior was interior green and the wheel wells were also black even though the were closed in flight.

I wonder if the multirole nature of the Beaufighter meant the areas under discussion were standardised, whereas the Lancaster was designed as a night bomber hence its colouring?

[Graham Boak]

The Beaufighter was built in two specific variants with different wings - one with armament and the other with fuel tanks.  I'm pretty sure that which airframe was going to be which would have been decided early enough to vary the cockpit interior if they wanted to.  I believe however that it would have been standardised, to simplify the manufacture of the smaller parts that were prepainted before assembly.  So did the CC aircraft have black interiors too?

 

The Lancaster had a large expanse of canopy so exposing a large area which could be judged as compromising the camouflage if painted a lighter colour.  I'm not sure that the same is true about the Beaufighter.  Early aircraft were painted in Temperate Land Scheme, so these interiors would not have been repainted with the exterior.

 

The problem with trying to argue this out logically is that we don't know all the starting assumptions.

[Seahawk]

The photos of the cockpit of an unspecified "Beaufighter Mk Ic/f/VIc/f" in MDF 6 clearly show a base cockpit green interior, albeit one almost obliterated by dials, panels and placards.  Like Graham, I would stick to the prescribed interior colour for all UK-built aircraft unless there is clear evidence to the contrary (as there is with Lancaster cockpit areas).

 

As for undercarriage doors, the under-nacelle area is invariably in shadow, even more deeply in the case of black aircraft, and the doors only open enough to allow the undercarriage legs to pass through.  I can't tell the door interior colour on any shot I've looked at.   Again I'd use the prescribed cockpit green knowing that a. it will be hard to tell what colour you used anyway and b. the chances of anyone that nosy being able to prove you wrong are negligible.

[Troy Smith]

As it has been mentioned, while some Lancaster cockpits were black,some were definitely interior green

 

Mosquito nightlights cockpit were not black.

 

Discussion of British interior colour is not helped by 50 years of the assumption that they were all interior grey green...

 

Various threads here discussed this, and up to mid war the main interior, except cockpit, was aluminium dope.  

 

How this applies to Beaufighters, I'm not sure,. But the black ones are earlier planes, as later tests showed the most effective night fighter camo was over Medium Sea Grey with Dark Green disruptive upper surface pattern, so I'd expect them to just be grey green.

A quick look through Beaufighter at War doesn't show much,  @Terry @ AviaeologyAv

Would be a good chap to ask, 

 

 

 

 

Hope of some use

[Silver Fox]

Thanks again for the input. Googling and search my books hasn't helped so I'll stick to interior green. Its going in a display cabinet anyway so no one will be able to see the wheel bay.