If your anything like me you spend 75% of your build time working on detailing cockpits and interiors just to close them up never to be seen again ( I now photograph mine). Why? Because cockpits and aircraft interiors are cool! Whats frustrating sometimes is trying to get really good color photos of vintage interiors. I found two great references I thought I’d pass on. They are Cockpit, An Illustrated History of WWII Aircraft Interiors by Donald Nijboer and Cockpits of the Cold War by Ron Dick. I happened to be in a book store and saw a pilots magazine that had an article on them. I didn’t buy the magazine but I just got my copy of the WWII one and it’s great. Looking forward to getting the second any day now. I got them on Amazon. They have both used and new at half the $40 or so cover price.
I guess I should post this in the reference forum also.[^]
Thanks John, being a cockpit freak maybe I will try to get that one!!!
I have the first book you mentioned, the WW II edition, and it’s been invaluable to me for the past three years or so. But be careful if you are a stickler for accuracy. Many of these cockpits they use to illustrate a particular type are privately restored birds and the cockpit colors are very wrong. The Zero, for example, has a floor and stick that are painted in what can only be described as John Deer Green. And Mitsubishi-made Zeros, it is now generally accepted, had cockpits that were painted a color that is an almost exact match for Polly Scale IJA green, almost an OD color (I forget the FS match, but no matter), while the Nakajima cockpits were close to the British gray-green color.
Anyway, the point is, when you use these books, check and see who did the restoration. The best ones are those that aren’t restored at all, but if it was done by the Smithsonian or one of the more reputable British museums, rather than private concerns, they are generally accurate.
And paint aside, the other great thing about these books is that they tell you which part goes where when detailing, and especially helps on instrument panels. But tread carefully when copying the colors. Of course, the Cold War colors are all pretty well documented, especially British and American ones, since they were all so standardized by then.
TOM