I've had some pretty serious medical issues lately and haven't been able to do any actual modeling, just looking through stuff. One of the things I've been looking at is my (unbuilt) Battle of Britain collection, including the Monogram 1/48 He 111. This led to a question I probably already know the answer to, but just to be sure, I thought I'd ask the experten here.

While the color callout for the interior in the kit is Dark Gray (I assume RLM66), it's my understanding that early in the war fighter AND bomber cockpits were RLM02. Am I remembering correctly?

Thanks for your help all. I do love KitMaker!

Michael

Yep, RLM02 up to and including H-5.
http://www.swannysmodels.com/Painting.html

That's afirmitive!
All interior painting of german aircraft was RLM 02 up into 1941 (wich month precisely I do not know, but the 1st Quarter should be reasonable).
Only the instruments panel was painted in RLM 66 & remained so up untill the end.
There were some exceptions but mostly in second line a/c
Cheers

It's been established that RLM66 was being used in the cockpits of the earliest Ju-88s, following the recovery of the Gardermoen museum's Ju88A-1.
How this affects what we know about He-111s I don't know, however there is a walkaround, inclucding cockpit shots, of the same museum's He-111P here

Cheers,
Bill.

Absolutely true. There is no set date for the introduction of RLM66 in aircraft interiors. The colour is mentioned in pre war Heinkel documents and there is strong evidence for its use on the Bf109E both as an interior colour (and on the inner and outer canopy framing) as early as the summer of 1940.
Why would it be particularly in/on "second line aircraft?" That doesn't make sense.
As far as your He111 goes there are some excellent pictures from Guttorm at the Gardermoen museum in this thread.

http://forum.largescaleplanes.com/index.php?showtopic=33650&st=0

As he points out most of the interior is in RLM66 but the aft compartment is in RLM02 so the answer to your original question is ....both.

Cheers
Steve

(quote)Why would it be particularly in/on "second line aircraft?" That doesn't make sense[/quote]

The only thing i'm pretty sure is that nothing is 100% black & white when it comes to painting rules. Exceptions are rather common in the Luftwaffe and controversy abounds
I tend to paint my models with the above guidance, and based on Michael Ullmann's excellent "Luftwaffe Colours 35-45", were official RLM directives point to 02 as the base colour for cockpits, being 66 mainly prescribed for interior canopy framing and instrument panels. And as far as bombers or transport planes, other internal areas were also 02.
As for second line a/c my point were obsolescent planes dated from pre-war years, were other lacquers were still in service.

So probably the truth is in all comments, depending on the particular maker and/or year of production, both shades can be the appropriate

Cheers and have fun modeling

Hi Pedro,the problem is that what various manufacturers and their sub-contractors did,never mind Luftwaffe units,is very often different from what we can learn from surviving RLM documentation. This is not an exclusively late war problem. Descriptions and photographs as well as surviving examples of original aircraft make a set date for some kind of orderly transition from one scheme to another untenable. There were simply too many variables involved. I'm a keen modeller myself (currently beating a Zoukei-Mura Ta152 into submission rather badly!) and I understand why people like to have firm time lines to advise them but really they are only vague guidelines. Without a good reference for your particular aircraft you are often making a best guess.
From my minimal investigations into pre-war or Legion Condor aircraft I think these are an even denser minefield!
Cheers
Steve