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Lancaster Cockpit Colour


Grizly

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While most kit painting guides would have you paint the cockpit area of the Lancaster grey/green, the more I look at photos, I am slowly becoming convinced that it, like the nose and turrets, was black as far back as the radio officer's station with the balance of the interior being grey/green. By my reasoning, it doesn't follow that the cockpit of a night bomber, like other areas visible from the outside, would be grey/green and not black. Conversely, I can understand that post-war Lancs might be given green cockpits in their maritime or other roles. Anybody care to comment?

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In my view it depends on when a Lancaster was built. Based on looking a many photos myself, my rule of thumb has become that early Lancasters were green on the inside entirely (including the bomb aimer section). Later Lancasters had black front interiors and the cockpit section green and black (not sure where the demarcation is exactly, or if it was consistent), and then the very late production types had entire black cockpit sections. Others may have more specific information of when these changes took place.

 

 

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I just discovered a video of the interior of Lancaster NX611 "Just Jane" and the interior from the nose back to but not including the radio operator's station is predominately black. From the radio operator's station aft is grey/green. True, it is a Mk.VII, a late production aircraft, which may be in keeping with the above comments by Elger.

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Depends entirely on when your subject was built. 

 

Basically, if the fuselage has the small side windows (even if overpainted) then the inside is all light grey green. Yes, even the "Air Bombers" area at the front.

 

And even after the fuselage windows were deleted from production in Aug/Sept 1943, the all light grey green fuselage interior finish continued for around another year.

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42 minutes ago, stever219 said:

Please read @woody37‘s comments, he only refers to the turrets, not the fuselage proper.

Thanks. My mistake. I didn't see the word turret.

 

Yes the turret interiors remained silver for quite a while before being painted black.

 

I'll remove/delete my misleading response.

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The logic doesn't really hold water. The cockpit is only visible from above, at which point the whole aircraft is in a non-black scheme anyway. And you'd have to be both very close and at a particular angle to see into the cockpit. I'd imagine the key consideration was what worked best for the pilot, not protection from night fighters.

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Hi all, first post so be kind..  I suspect the Lancaster cockpit colour changed to black due to reflection on the inside of the canopy thus reducing the pilots view outside.  I suggest this as I worked for a few years in the offshore rotary world and the pilots immersion suits and life jackets were all dark blue for this very reason.

 

I reckon the change came about from aircrew feedback on ops and only became a problem when the sky became illuminated with searchlights and flares etc.  Might suggest why the bomb aimers position was the first to be painted black.

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