AOTAKE!!

I think it is also important to remember that cockpits were often painted rather than left in the aotake primer. In some cases certain parts were painted a green similar to US interiors while other parts were left with only an aotake finish. Check out the NASM's Gekko restoration to see an excellent example of this. I have also seen wartime photos of bare metal fuselage interiors with the only the cockpit painted green on some Kawanishi aircraft. And of course there was Nakajima who seems to have painted may of their cockpits a very much lighter yellow -green. The war went on for many years and in the more desperate times, you can bet that both in the field and at the factorys, substitutions were made. I'm always somewhat amused by some who spend so much time determining the "exact" shade or color for aircraft paint. Even if you model only factory fresh aircraft, that would seem a bit difficult to achieve for many Japanese and German aircraft. :)

I met a bloke whos father worked in the aircraft plant as a test pilot at yokohama, and asked why the interior of his zero was red. He said that although there was a colour code, they ended up painting some aircraft whatever they could just to stop corrosion. I didnt really believ him til i found a picture of a zero with a horrid lime green interior.
Don't always believ you're colour codes either, get som pictures. The cod for my hurricane has the spinner black, when it should be white, and the engine bay grey/green, when it should be aluminium.


Cheers

After doing some picture searching, I found pics of zeroes with the aotake interior color (inside panels, landing gear, etc) and a minty light green in the cockpit. Does anyone have anything to say about this?

In reference w/ the Japenese inter colors, I had heard that they had a few colors.
This depended on which branch of serv the birds were w/(Army, Navy) This was a while ago but Navy ships had a Metalic blueish inter while the Army ones had a greenish grey color(it could be the other way around to).
I thought I had also seen/read this in some of my ref material aswell. Like I said I had heard this a while back so I could have well heard wrong.
Flaps up, MIke

Not knowing what aotake was, I didn't even read this post until I was in the Tamiya site, under Tips & Techniques, an article by Stan Spooner entitled "Be afraid of the dark" on his Nakajima J1N1 and his aotake. Might help?

Some Japanese aircraft had bare metal (or silver painted?) interiors.

This is from a list I got from more than one source... including FSM.

So I think it is correct...

Is not the Tamiya a bit too dark and bright? Or is it just right?

The Japanese Interior Blue is Gunze Snagyo H63; Tamiya X13; Testors 2118; and Xtracolor X355.

I have some WW2 colors listed here: http://www.naplak.com/modeling/tips/color_guide.htm