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  • Matty

WWII era colour cockpit photos

I wonder if someone could point me in the direction of any decent quality colour photos of any of the common RAF cockpits during WWII?

Looking at the aircraft instruments today you see a lot of warn out parts, bleached colours and shrivelled soft parts (a problem not limited to aircraft instruments sadly).

I’m particularly interested to know what the foam protective pads on reflector gunsights would have looked like new.
Also, the luminous paint on the dials – how much did they glow in daylight and would they have had a colour?

I found these few pictures but they aren’t that great and don’t really answer my questions. Any help much appreciated.

http://www.ww2color.com/nennius/webapps/slides/slides.php?action=update&primary_key=01443
http://www.ww2color.com/Galley%202/images/01443.jpg

http://www.ww2color.com/nennius/webapps/slides/slides.php?action=update&primary_key=02644
http://www.ww2color.com/Galley%204/images/02644.jpg

cheers
Matt

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By: Matty - 7th October 2011 at 20:43

luminous paint does not glow (or appear to) in daylight…as the daylight out shines it if you see what I mean….it was and still is a bleached bone colour paint.

Bleached bone eh? But not brown like they show up now? Do you know what colour they would have glowed?

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By: Matty - 7th October 2011 at 20:39

Foam padding?

Fat lot of good!!

= Tim

Looks like you had a very close-up view. Is that what happens when you try and kiss a Hurricane while landing? An understandable urge but bad timing perhaps. :dev2:

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By: pagen01 - 7th October 2011 at 20:33

Fantastic shots, probably the best cockpit one I’ve seen of the era.

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By: Rocketeer - 7th October 2011 at 20:29

luminous paint does not glow (or appear to) in daylight…as the daylight out shines it if you see what I mean….it was and still is a bleached bone colour paint.

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By: Mark V - 7th October 2011 at 19:49

Good example of the bare metal/silver Spitfire door crowbar in the second shot…

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By: cotteswold - 7th October 2011 at 19:27

Foam padding?

Fat lot of good!!

= Tim

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