Westland Whirlwind Cockpit Colours…

The primer used to be chromate based (green/yellow) – but as the chromate is not so human friendly when sprayed it has been superceded by modern primers.

For cockpit grey green – either go to the local paint shop and get some mixed quickly – as the solvent borne paints are being phased out! The solvent borne cellulose paints have doubled in price since last year!

Or you can purchase 1 litre tins of the correct cockpit grey green as well as the chromate from LAS Aeropsace.

We use it for painting the inside of our panels..

wow that will be an amazingly exciting picture!! Here it is with my ‘helpers’ playing tuggy!!

Thanks for that Rocketeer…;)

And many thanks to everyone else who helped… 🙂

wow that will be an amazingly exciting picture!! Here it is with my ‘helpers’ playing tuggy!!

Rocketeer… 🙂 Any chance you could post a photo of the colour? It would be very, helpfull to the project if you could…

I have one of my two Windscreen units currently stripped down, the inside is standard cockpit green. There is no etch primer on it. Just top coat cockpit green……if you are near the Salisbury area you are welcome to see the colour.

I need to find what colour the production cockpits were painted in?

I vaguely remember Fred Ballam saying that they were given a coat of etch primer (Which is the norm for Aluminium, Magnesium etc.) to promote paint adhesion, but can’t remember if he said they were left like that, or if it was painted after?

If they were painted, was there a standard Ministry colour for cockpits? As in the Spitfires, Hurricanes, Beaufighters etc…

Thanks for any info

Standard interior colour over this was RAF interior grey green.

Certainly for the cockpit and I would not be at all surprised if other interior areas were painted with this colour also (if Westland built Seafires and Spitfires are anything to go by).

that yellow-green was probably the primer, we use a hi level zinc rich etch primer in the fabrication of our rally cars/bikes thats an old fashioned formula and when applied is yellow and turns a mid green when dry… depending on the thickness of the coat and the proportion of the paint/activator you do get a very sickly green… being zinc based its specifically designed for use on ally (but still works exceptionally well on steel)

a spare engine having the crankcase/covers cleaned up… that just had a single dust coat and it turns that green-yellow.

I need to find what colour the production cockpits were painted in?

I vaguely remember Fred Ballam saying that they were given a coat of etch primer (Which is the norm for Aluminium, Magnesium etc.) to promote paint adhesion, but can’t remember if he said they were left like that, or if it was painted after?

If they were painted, was there a standard Ministry colour for cockpits? As in the Spitfires, Hurricanes, Beaufighters etc…

Thanks for any info

Etch primer, or the one I am familiar with is a sickly yellow green, this was not the final coat in crew areas, only in non-inhabited parts. Standard interior colour over this was RAF interior grey green. Bombers were black inside the cockpit for obvious reasons, while later in the war the RAF changed to black interiors on most fighters. This was around latish 1944 (off the top of my head), but the Whirlwind would have been standard grey green. Humbrol have matched with their colour # 78.