B-17 cockpit & radio room photos?

Some where painted in interior green and others were natural metal finish. Depends if your trying to be 100% accurate on your particular build. Some navigator/bombadier quarters where also interior green but I have found photos where they too were left unpainted. I have also seen painted bombers with unpainted interiors aft of the radio room too. So its all on you how accurate you want to be with your build.

(color picture below confirms unpainted bombadie/navigator area)

Absolutely outstanding!!!!!!!!!  Thank you for those pictures!  They were EXACTLY what I was looking for and more!  I was curious about the door colors but your pictures took care of that question as well.

I have two B-17s that I'll be working on.  This first one will be for my 4 year old daughter's room.  Yes, she actually did ask me to build it for her so it could be hung up in her room.  The second one is for my 8 year old and she picked out the "see through" one.  That's the one where detail will be paramount, at least for me.

Thank you again!

Eric

I think it comes down to what letter of the BVD you are building: (Boeing, Vega, or Douglas)?  I believe each manufacturer built to different specs in regards to paint of fuselage spaces.  And don't believe restorations as the exact final word on colors.

The more I read the more stuff I find out, not only the variations in manufactures but also in the field modifications. The bombers were for a time shipped out with windscreens with four seperate pieces where they were then changed in the field to armor two piece glass. Different build blocks were different modifactions. The original 9 o 9 B-17 originally had no cheak guns because of it being omitted from the early G block models and was latter field modified for them and when they were painted the olive drab color was slightly darker than the rest of the plane. Bombers with the bendix chin turrent originaly came without flash guards on the barrels until they found the blast at certain altitude would crack or outright shatter the nose plexiglass. Different nose lengths were used, some bombers had the walkaround the ball turret go on the pilots side, others on the copilots side. Staggered waist gunners did not show up until later block models, some bombadier platforms were wood some without. Later G models had props that could change their pitch to reduce drag in the event of an engine failure. Most bombers did not have aircraft life saving fire extinquishers that were routed in the wings and engines (would stop engine fires that could end up consuming the whole aircraft) as to save weight for maximum payload. Flaps were painted and others unpainted... The list just goes on and on. In the end you will just have to either do alot of research on the particular aircraft or just paint as you see fit. Even then it will be hard to make it 100% correct.

I more or less agree with everything you said there, except about the propellers. All B-17's had variable pitch, hamilton standard props. If engine quit/got shot out etc...the propeller  blades would be feathered to (turned into the wind) so they wouldnt wind mill. If a prop could not be feathed it would wind mill causing drag on the plane and bad vibrations and would eventually overheat the crankcase and shear off from the engine.

Yes sir, there are a lot of differant variations of color in the B-17. I would go with what you see in the WWII pics of B-17 interior. Alot of these pics are from the restorations, green all over the place nose to tail is not exactly correct.