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RLM aircraft designation system
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The '''
Reichsluftfahrtministerium RLM aircraft designation system''' was an attempt by the aviation bureaucracy of the
Third Reich to standardize and produce an identifier for each aircraft type produced in
Germany. It was in use from 1933 to 1945 though many pre-1933 aircraft were included and the system had changes over those years. A compiled list of the actual designations is
List of RLM aircraft here, the '''RLM-GL/C list'''. Mainly aircraft of the WW2 luftwaffe, but also civilian airliners and sport planes.
The System
When the RLM (''Reichsluftfahrtministerium'' "Reich Aviation Ministry") was given control of the country's aviation activities in
1933 it set out to catalogue both aircraft already in production by various
aircraft manufacturer manufacturers as well as new projects approved for development by the ministry. The RLM improved over a designation system which was created 1929/30 by Heereswaffenamt in Reichswehrministery together with other institutions and the industry. To eliminate the up to then existing confusion in a/c designations between the different manufacturers a new system was introduced to simply identify every airplane. At that time, for example, not less than 6 aircraft of different firms carried the number 33. (That were the Caspar C 33, the Focke-Wulf A 33, the Heinkel HD 33, the Junkers W 33, the Klemm L 33 and the BFW M 33.)
The heart of the designation system was a (theoretically) unique number assigned by the RLM. In internal paperwork, this number was simply prefixed "8-" (or, in the case of
sailplanes, subject to a separate numerical list, "108-"), while "9-" indicated aircraft engines. Originally, these numbers were assigned sequentially, and wherever possible attempted to take into account manufacturers' own in-house design numbers for types already existing in 1933. Duplication resulted from the fact that when one manufacturer abandoned a project, the same number was occasionally re-allocated with an appropriate time delay to another manufacturer.
Also the manufactureres now were to use a type designation built out of the first two letters of his name as Dornier (''Do'') and Rohrbach (''Ro'') had already done all the time. Of these two letters the first had to be written large, the second always small, despite its origine. Therefore ''Fw'' for Focke-Wulf or ''Bf'' for
Bayerische Flugzeugwerke. The very first exemption from that rule was several years later granted
Blohm & Voss, when they renamed their split-off aircraft manufacturer from Hamburger Flugzeugbau (Ha) to Blohm & Voss and got BV for their new aircraft, the first being the BV 138.
Thus, what the RLM internally referred to as type "8-262" would be more generally known as the "Me 262". See
List of RLM aircraft for a full list of designations allocated by the RLM and the aircraft they correspond to.
A list of the most common manufacturers and their letter designations is given below:
Each individual prototype aircraft were suffixed with "V" (for ''Versuchs'' "prototype") and a unique identification number. So, for example, the '''Me 262 V3''' was the third prototype of the
Messerschmitt Me 262 Me 262 built. It should be noted, that V numbers were not used before February 1935.
Once accepted by
Lufthansa or the
Luftwaffe, major variants of the aircraft were suffixed alphabetically with a capital letter. For example, the major variants of the Me 262 were numbered '''Me 262 A''', '''Me 262 B''', and '''Me 262 C'''.
More minor variants were then suffixed numerically, beginning with '''-0''' for pre-production evaluation versions. Thus, the first batch of Me 262 As supplied by Messerschmitt were designated '''Me 262 A-0''', followed by production versions '''Me 262 A-1''' through to (in the case of this particular aircraft) '''Me 262 A-5'''.
More minor variants still were given a lower case alphabetical suffix. When the '''Me 262 A-1a''' was to be equipped with different engines, it became the '''Me 262 A-1b'''.
Finally, special conversions of basic types were given the suffix '''/U''' followed by a number when carried out by the manufacturer (''Umbausatz'' "conversion kit"), or '''/R''' followed by a number (''Rüstsatz'' "add-on kit") when carried out in the field. For example, '''Me 262 A-1a/U3''' referred to a small number of the standard Me 262 A-1a fighters that were modified by Messerschmitt as reconnaissance aircraft. The suffix '''trop''' (for "tropical") was applied to aircraft modified to operate in the hot and dusty North African and Mediterranean theatres, for example, the '''Bf 109 F-4 trop'''.
By the time the second world war started, manufactureres increasingly built developments of successful existing types rather than completely new designs. To reflect the 'lineage' of those aircraft, the new types were numbered in steps of 100 above the number of the basic model they were derived from. Thus, the
Junkers Ju 88 formed the basis for the
Junkers Ju 188 Ju 188,
Junkers Ju 288 Ju 288,
Junkers Ju 388 Ju 388, and
Junkers Ju 488 Ju 488.
Another change in the system appeared halfway the war. With the Luftwaffes hunger for fresh airplanes far outpacing the capacity of the original manufacturers, certainly with its factories now regularly being bombed by the
allies, aircraft construction was increasingly subcontracted and licensed out. As a result the name of the original manufacturer lost its significance: Its aircraft were now built by a variety of factories often without any links to the constructor whose name it bore. Therefore, the two-letter designation was changed to indicate the developer or design team rather than the (original) constructor.
Sometimes this update simplified matters.
Messerschmitt for instance could now use the affix ''Me'' for its new designs rather than the former ''Bf'' for
Bayrische Flugzeugwerke, after their transformation into Messerschmitt AG on 11 July 1938. The first aircraft to benefit from the change was the Me 210. Nevertheless the three aircraft Bf 108, 109 and 110 kept their Bf until the end. In other cases the new rules just created more confusion as for instance the successor of Focke-Wulf's
Fw 190 was called
Ta 152 after Focke Wulf's chief constructor
Kurt Tank
For most manufacturers however, the designation remained the same: In smaller companies (like Klemm and Fieseler) the namesake owner and nominal chief designer were one and the same person while in bigger companies the planes were designed by a factory team with varying members.
A list of the most notable changes in designation appears below:
(*) Although Hütter never worked for Heinkel, his only aircraft project, the
Hütter Hü 211 Hü 211 was a development of the Heinkel 219 with a new high-ratio high-performance wing.
(**) No direct replacement
(***) '''Wn''' was used by WNF only for a few own designs like Wn 11, Wn 15 and Wn 16, of which no one reached a series production.
There is no single "master list" of designations that holds true throughout 1933-1945; the sequence is particularly muddled at the beginning and end of the list. To see the RLM-GL/C list in a numerical table, go to
List of RLM aircraft
To see the RLM airplanes arranged by manufacturer, go to
RLM aircraft by manufacturer
Related content
*
List of RLM paint designations
*
List of Aircraft of the Akademische Fliegergruppe ''Akademische Fliegergruppe'' (University Flying Group)
*
List of motors of WW2 Luftwaffe Aircraft WW2 Luftwaffe aircraft engines
*
List of weapons of military aircraft of Germany during World War Two WW2 Luftwaffe aircraft weapons
*
RLM aircraft by manufacturer
See also:
List of common World War II infantry weapons Common WW2 Weapons,
List of aircraft of the Armée de l'Air,
BMW 801,
BMW 003,
List of Sailplanes,
RLM numbering system for gliders and sailplanes
External links
-
Virtual Aviation Museum
-
German Military Aircraft Designations (1933-1945)
Category:Aircraft
Category:Nazi Germany
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