RLM aircraft designation system
Encyclopedia
The German Air Ministry (Reichsluftfahrtministerium; RLM) had a system for aircraft designation which 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.
As well as aircraft of the Luftwaffe, it covered civilian airliners and sport planes.
The improved designation system was introduced in order to provide a simple and unambiguous identification of every airplane. The heart of the new 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, with 109 prefixing reaction engines (gas turbines, pulse-jets and rockets). The new standardized type designation added two letters representing the manufacturer; Dornier (Do) and Rohrbach (Ro) already used this practice. The first of these two letters was shown in upper case, the second always in lower case, no matter its origin – so Fw for Focke-Wulf
or Bf for Bayerische Flugzeugwerke. The very first exemption from this rule was granted several years later to Blohm & Voss when they renamed their aircraft manufacturing operation – which had been split off from Hamburger Flugzeugbau
(Ha) – to Blohm & Voss and received the designation BV for their new aircraft, the first of which was the BV 138 Fliegende Holzschuh trimotor flying boat.
As such the RLM referred to a Messerschmitt twin-jet fighter project internally as type "8-262", although the same aircraft in service would be more generally known as the "Me 262". Originally, these numbers were assigned sequentially and wherever possible attempted to take into account the 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, with one known case being the number "8-163", used both for the Messerschmitt Bf 163
liaison design, and later the much more famous Komet
rocket-powered interceptor, where the same firm (under a new name) re-used the same number.
built. Later in World War II, with such aircraft as the Heinkel He 162
, other letters such as "M" for Müster (model) replaced the "V" designation, and even the Me 262's own later prototypes began using the letter "S" for such models.
Once accepted by Deutsche 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 experimentally equipped with different engines, in this given case the BMW 003 units, it became the Me 262 A-1b.
Finally, special conversions of basic types were given the suffix R/ or /U followed by a number. R was an abbreviation of Rüstsatz, a pre-packaged kit of parts that was usually installed on aircraft in the field, as opposed to requiring an aircraft factory to install one. The Rüstsatz designation was used for modification of basic types in order to be usable for a specific mission task like recon, fighter-bomber or bomber-destroyer. U was Umrüst-Bausatz ("conversion kit"), often contracted to Umbau, and was done with aircraft taken from the assembly line but also in repair workshops with airframes already in use, in any environment equipped at least as well as an aircraft factory would have had. The Umrüst-Bausatz designation was used for smaller equipment changes like additional boost agents for the engine or a different main armament. 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 tropen "tropical") was applied to aircraft modified to operate in the hot and dusty North African, Mediterranean and southern Russian theatres, for example, the Bf 109 F-4 trop.
Another notable practice in the German aviation industry of the time was for the "increase" of the three-digit section of an earlier design's RLM airframe number by a factor of one hundred for the earlier design's intended upgrade, or replacement: the intended replacement for the Messerschmitt Bf 110
, for example, was the Messerschmitt Me 210
, and similarly, the Amerika Bomber
trans-oceanic range development of the earlier Heinkel He 177
heavy bomber received the designation Heinkel He 277
.
in Hamburg opened an aircraft subsidiary under the name of Hamburger Flugzeugbau
. RLM awarded this factory the designation Ha. However the connection with 'Hamburgs tradition' Blohm & Voss was just too strong to be neglected and the aircraft coming from the Hamburger Flugzeugwerke were commonly known as 'Blohm & Voss type Ha xxx' . Finally the RLM caved in to popular views and gave the factory a new designation BV for Blohm & Voss.
Bayerische Flugzeugwerke ("Bavarian Aircraft Works") was founded in 1926 out of the bankrupt remainder of former Udet flugzeugbau. Originally producing its legacy of Udet-designed sportsplanes, it later went on to secure the services of Willy Messerschmitt
, not as a chief engineer but as a free-lance designer. Thus BFW in Munich and Augsburg would produce and distribute designs from Flugzeugbau Messerschmitt in Bamberg. For some reason, (and also in part because of a deep personal animosity between Willy Messerschmitt and State Secretary of Aviation Erhard Milch
) the RLM awarded the manufacturers designation NOT to Messerschmitt but to BFW and thus Messerschmitt's record sportsplane design M 37 was produced as the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke Bf 108. Dissatisfied with this settlement, Messerschmitt himself used the money from the sales of his designs to buy a tract of land in Regensburg, founded the Messerschmitt GmbH aircraft factory and planned (or threatened) to start aircraft production on his own. Forced to choose between giving Messerschmitt his due and becoming a pure subcontractor, on 11 July 1938 the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke took on Messerschmitt as chairman and managing director, took over the Regensburg plant and renamed itself the Messerschmitt AG
. The RLM assigned this 'new' factory the designation Me. The first aircraft to benefit from the change was the Me 210. Nevertheless the three aircraft Bf 108, 109 and 110 officially kept their Bf prefix, due to their pre-July 1938 origins, until the end.
In 1933, the RLM found that its aircraft production was concentrated too much in the South and West of the country and therefore asked Hanns Klemm to relocate his factory Klemm Flugzeugbau
from Böblingen in Bavaria to the town of Halle in Saxony. Unwilling to leave his 'home turf,' Klemm teamed up with financier Fritz Siebel and founded Flugzeugbau Halle: a completely new factory in Halle license-building Klemm designs under the RLM designation Fh. However by the time the first Halle design, the Fh 104 (that started its life on the drawing board still as the Klemm
Kl 104) had flown in 1937, Siebel became majority shareholder of the new factory, bought in his own design team and renamed the factory Siebel Flugzeugwerke KG
, henceforth producing his own designs under the RLM letter designation Si.
Also in 1933, the glider schools of the Rhön-Rossitten Gesellschaft
were incorporated into the Hitlerjugend, while its construction and research team continued as a pure experimental think tank under the name Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug
or simply DFS. Although the DFS was a pure research facility and lacked the means of series production, several of its designs were license-built by various aircraft factories. Uncharacteristic for the RLM, these designs retained the 3-letter all-capital designation DFS.
A list of the most notable changes in designation appears below:
formed the basis for the Ju 188
, Ju 288
, Ju 388
, and Ju 488
.
Another change in the system was the gradual replacement of the two-letter prefix for the constructor with a prefix for the designer. Almost from the beginning the RLM used an elaborate system of licence-building and subcontracting to maximize its output of huge numbers of relatively few types of 'standard equipment' airplanes. Initially, the factory that designed the plane maintained the biggest share of that planes production. With the war proceeding, the Luftwaffe's need for fresh airplanes quickly outpaced the capacity of the original manufacturers, certainly with its factories now regularly being bombed by the Allies
. As a result the connection between aircraft and original manufacturer eventually lost its significance. Aircraft were now built by a variety of factories often without any links to the constructor whose name it bore. Furthermore, aircraft engineers and designers, a hot commodity for a constructor and therefore aggressively courted and headhunted, were famous for their tendency to leave one company for the next bigger one every few years. Finally more and more of them started their own aircraft development company under their own name. The RLM followed suit by giving their products a two-letter designation reflecting the constructor's name rather than the constructor he (originally) worked for. To further complicate things, those new design bureaus were often assigned ranges of aircraft numbers formerly assigned to other constructors but unused. Thus when Focke-Wulf's chief constructor Kurt Tank
founded his own design bureau he got assigned the prefix Ta and the numbers 151 through 154. As a result, the further development of his Focke-Wulf Fw 190
became the Tank Ta 152 but remained commonly known as the Focke-Wulf Ta 152
.
(*) Although Hütter never worked for Heinkel, his only aircraft project, the Hü 211
was a development of the Heinkel 219 with a new high-ratio high-performance wing.
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.
(For see the RLM airplanes arranged by manufactuer, see RLM aircraft by manufacturer
)
When a German military aircraft emerged from its production plant, it was given a four-letter Stammkennzeichen code (factory radio code), which was an individual aircraft's radio code before it entered service and staying with the aircraft throughout its entire existence. This format was also usually used for prototype aircraft if they did not bear a German national "D-xxxx" style civil registration. The entire Stammkennzeichen was usually on the fuselage sides, and also often repeated on the undersides of both wings, with the four letters spread out along the entire wing's under–surfaces. The code could also be placed on such things as the manufacturer's identification plate, and sometimes even the compass correction card for a particular aircraft.
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
. It was in use from 1933 to 1945 though many pre-1933 aircraft were included and the system had changes over those years.
As well as aircraft of the Luftwaffe, it covered civilian airliners and sport planes.
The system
When the Reichsluftfahrtministerium was given control of the country's aviation activities in 1933, it set out to catalog both the aircraft already in production by various German manufacturers as well as new projects approved for development by the ministry. The RLM made necessary improvements to a designation system which had been set up in 1929/30 by the Heereswaffenamt (Army Weapons Office) in the Reichswehrministerium (Defense Ministry), together with other institutions related to the industry. The former system had caused confusion in the use of aircraft designations among the different manufacturers; six aircraft of different firms used the number 33.The improved designation system was introduced in order to provide a simple and unambiguous identification of every airplane. The heart of the new 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, with 109 prefixing reaction engines (gas turbines, pulse-jets and rockets). The new standardized type designation added two letters representing the manufacturer; Dornier (Do) and Rohrbach (Ro) already used this practice. The first of these two letters was shown in upper case, the second always in lower case, no matter its origin – so Fw for Focke-Wulf
Focke-Wulf
Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau AG was a German manufacturer of civil and military aircraft before and during World War II. Many of the company's successful fighter aircraft designs were slight modifications of the Focke-Wulf Fw 190.-History:...
or Bf for Bayerische Flugzeugwerke. The very first exemption from this rule was granted several years later to Blohm & Voss when they renamed their aircraft manufacturing operation – which had been split off from Hamburger Flugzeugbau
Hamburger Flugzeugbau
Hamburger Flugzeugbau was an aircraft company, located in the Finkenwerder quarter of Hamburg, Germany. Originally established in July 1933 as a subsidiary of the Blohm & Voss shipyards, it has managed to survive under different names as part of different consortia from its German national...
(Ha) – to Blohm & Voss and received the designation BV for their new aircraft, the first of which was the BV 138 Fliegende Holzschuh trimotor flying boat.
As such the RLM referred to a Messerschmitt twin-jet fighter project internally as type "8-262", although the same aircraft in service would be more generally known as the "Me 262". Originally, these numbers were assigned sequentially and wherever possible attempted to take into account the 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, with one known case being the number "8-163", used both for the Messerschmitt Bf 163
Messerschmitt Bf 163
|- Sources :* Green, William Warplanes of the Third Reich. Galahad Books, 1986.-See also:...
liaison design, and later the much more famous Komet
Messerschmitt Me 163
The Messerschmitt Me 163 Komet, designed by Alexander Lippisch, was a German rocket-powered fighter aircraft. It is the only rocket-powered fighter aircraft ever to have been operational. Its design was revolutionary, and the Me 163 was capable of performance unrivaled at the time. Messerschmitt...
rocket-powered interceptor, where the same firm (under a new name) re-used the same number.
| Al | Albatros | Fg | Flugtechnische Fertigungsgemeinschaft Prag | Ho | Reimar und Walter Horten Horten brothers Walter Horten and Reimar Horten , sometimes credited as the Horten Brothers, were German aircraft pilots and enthusiasts, and members of the Hitler Youth and Nazi party... |
| Ar | Arado Arado Flugzeugwerke Arado Flugzeugwerke was a German aircraft manufacturer, originally established as the Warnemünde factory of the Flugzeugbau Friedrichshafen firm, that produced military hydroplanes during the First World War.-History:... |
Fh | Flugzeugwerk Halle, later Si for Siebel Siebel Siebel, originally Flugzeugbau Halle, was a German aircraft manufacturer founded in 1937 in Halle an der Saale. It was revived as Siebelwerke in 1948. In 1952, it merged with ATG to form Siebelwerke-ATG Gmbh... |
Hs | Henschel |
| As | Argus Motoren Argus Motoren Argus Motoren was a German manufacturing firm known for their series of small inverted-V engines and the V-1 pulse jet engine.-History:... |
Fi | Fieseler Fieseler The Gerhard Fieseler Werke was a German aircraft manufacturer of the 1930s and 40s. The company is remembered mostly for its military aircraft built for the Luftwaffe during the Second World War.-History:... |
Ju | Junkers |
| Ba | Bachem Bachem Bachem was a German company that built the famous Bachem Ba 349 rocket interceptor aircraft at the end of World War II.-See also:*Reich Air Ministry*List of RLM aircraft designations... |
FK | Flugzeugbau Kiel | Kl | Klemm Flugzeugbau Klemm The Klemm Leichtflugzeugbau GmbH was a German aircraft manufacturer noteworthy for sports and touring planes of the 1930s.The company was founded in Böblingen in 1926 by Dr... |
| Bf | Bayerische Flugzeugwerke (after July 1938, Messerschmitt AG) | Fl | Flettner Flettner Anton Flettner, Flugzeugbau GmbH was a German helicopter and autogyro manufacturer during World War II, founded by Anton Flettner.Flettner aircraft included:*Flettner Fl 184 reconnaissance autogyro, prototype... |
NR | Nagler-Rolz |
| Bü | Bücker Bucker Bucker may refer to:* Bücker Flugzeugbau*George Bucker, also known as Adam Damlip, Protestant martyr... |
Fw | Focke-Wulf Focke-Wulf Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau AG was a German manufacturer of civil and military aircraft before and during World War II. Many of the company's successful fighter aircraft designs were slight modifications of the Focke-Wulf Fw 190.-History:... |
So | Heinz Sombold |
| BV | Blohm & Voss | Go | Gothaer Waggonfabrik Gothaer Waggonfabrik Gothaer Waggonfabrik was a German manufacturer of rolling stock established in the late nineteenth century at Gotha. During the two world wars, the company expanded into aircraft building.-World War I:... |
Sk | Skoda-Kauba |
| DFS | Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug The Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug, or DFS was formed in 1933 to centralise all gliding activity in Germany... |
Ha | Hamburger Flugzeugbau Hamburger Flugzeugbau Hamburger Flugzeugbau was an aircraft company, located in the Finkenwerder quarter of Hamburg, Germany. Originally established in July 1933 as a subsidiary of the Blohm & Voss shipyards, it has managed to survive under different names as part of different consortia from its German national... |
We | Weser Flugzeugbau Weser Flugzeugbau Weser Flugzeugbau GmbH, known as Weserflug, was the fourth largest aircraft manufacturer in World War II Germany.The company was founded in 1934 as a subsidiary of the ship and machine company Deutsche Schiff- und Maschinenbau AG . It began production that year at Berlin Tempelhof, and in Bremen.In... |
| Do | Dornier | He | Heinkel Heinkel Heinkel Flugzeugwerke was a German aircraft manufacturing company founded by and named after Ernst Heinkel. It is noted for producing bomber aircraft for the Luftwaffe in World War II and for important contributions to high-speed flight.-History:... |
ZMe | Zeppelin Luftschiffbau Zeppelin Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH is a German company which, during the early 20th century, was a leader in the design and manufacture of rigid airships, specifically of the Zeppelin type. The company was founded by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin... /Messerschmitt Messerschmitt Messerschmitt AG was a famous German aircraft manufacturing corporation named for its chief designer, Willy Messerschmitt, and known primarily for its World War II fighter aircraft, notably the Bf 109 and Me 262... |
| Fa | Focke-Achgelis Focke-Achgelis Focke-Achgelis & Co. G.m.b.H. was a German helicopter company founded in 1937 by Henrich Focke and Gerd Achgelis.-History:In 1936 Focke had been ousted from the Focke-Wulf company he had cofounded in 1924 by shareholder pressure... |
HM | Hirth Motoren GmbH | ZSo | Zeppelin Luftschiffbau Zeppelin Luftschiffbau Zeppelin GmbH is a German company which, during the early 20th century, was a leader in the design and manufacture of rigid airships, specifically of the Zeppelin type. The company was founded by Count Ferdinand von Zeppelin... /SNCASO |
Prototypes and variants
After February 1935, each individual prototype aircraft were suffixed with "V" (for Versuchs German: "prototype") and a unique identification number. So, for example, the Me 262 V3 was the third prototype of the Me 262Messerschmitt Me 262
The Messerschmitt Me 262 Schwalbe was the world's first operational jet-powered fighter aircraft. Design work started before World War II began, but engine problems prevented the aircraft from attaining operational status with the Luftwaffe until mid-1944...
built. Later in World War II, with such aircraft as the Heinkel He 162
Heinkel He 162
The Heinkel He 162 Volksjäger was a German single-engine, jet-powered fighter aircraft fielded by the Luftwaffe in World War II. Designed and built quickly, and made primarily of wood as metals were in very short supply and prioritised for other aircraft, the He 162 was nevertheless the fastest of...
, other letters such as "M" for Müster (model) replaced the "V" designation, and even the Me 262's own later prototypes began using the letter "S" for such models.
Once accepted by Deutsche Lufthansa
Deutsche Luft Hansa
Deutsche Luft Hansa A.G. was a German airline, serving as flag carrier of the country during the later years of the Weimar Republic and throughout the Third Reich.-1920s:Deutsche Luft Hansa was founded on 6 January 1926 in Berlin...
or the Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe
Luftwaffe is a generic German term for an air force. It is also the official name for two of the four historic German air forces, the Wehrmacht air arm founded in 1935 and disbanded in 1946; and the current Bundeswehr air arm founded in 1956....
, 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 experimentally equipped with different engines, in this given case the BMW 003 units, it became the Me 262 A-1b.
Finally, special conversions of basic types were given the suffix R/ or /U followed by a number. R was an abbreviation of Rüstsatz, a pre-packaged kit of parts that was usually installed on aircraft in the field, as opposed to requiring an aircraft factory to install one. The Rüstsatz designation was used for modification of basic types in order to be usable for a specific mission task like recon, fighter-bomber or bomber-destroyer. U was Umrüst-Bausatz ("conversion kit"), often contracted to Umbau, and was done with aircraft taken from the assembly line but also in repair workshops with airframes already in use, in any environment equipped at least as well as an aircraft factory would have had. The Umrüst-Bausatz designation was used for smaller equipment changes like additional boost agents for the engine or a different main armament. 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 tropen "tropical") was applied to aircraft modified to operate in the hot and dusty North African, Mediterranean and southern Russian theatres, for example, the Bf 109 F-4 trop.
Another notable practice in the German aviation industry of the time was for the "increase" of the three-digit section of an earlier design's RLM airframe number by a factor of one hundred for the earlier design's intended upgrade, or replacement: the intended replacement for the Messerschmitt Bf 110
Messerschmitt Bf 110
The Messerschmitt Bf 110, often called Me 110, was a twin-engine heavy fighter in the service of the Luftwaffe during World War II. Hermann Göring was a proponent of the Bf 110, and nicknamed it his Eisenseiten...
, for example, was the Messerschmitt Me 210
Messerschmitt Me 210
The Messerschmitt Me 210 was a German heavy fighter and ground-attack aircraft of World War II. The Me 210 was designed to replace the Bf 110 in heavy fighter role; design started before the opening of World War II. The first examples of the Me 210 were ready in 1939, but they proved to have poor...
, and similarly, the Amerika Bomber
Amerika Bomber
The Amerika-Bomber project was an initiative of the Reichsluftfahrtministerium, the Nazi Germany Air Ministry, to obtain a long-range strategic bomber for the Luftwaffe that would be capable of striking the continental United States from Germany, a range of about 5,800 km...
trans-oceanic range development of the earlier Heinkel He 177
Heinkel He 177
The Heinkel He 177 Greif was the only operational long-range bomber to be operated by the Luftwaffe. Starting its existence as Germany's first purpose-built heavy bomber just before the war, and built in large numbers during World War II, it was also mistakenly tasked, right from its beginnings,...
heavy bomber received the designation Heinkel He 277
Heinkel He 277
The Heinkel He 277 was a four-engine, long range heavy bomber design, a derivative of the He 177, intended for production and use by the German Luftwaffe during World War II. The main difference was in engine configuration...
.
Name changes and new constructors
In 1933 Germany's largest shipbuilder Blohm & VossBlohm + Voss
Blohm + Voss , is a German shipbuilding and engineering works. It is a subsidiary of ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems; there were plans to sell 80% of Blohm + Voss to Abu Dhabi Mar Group, but talks collapsed in July 2011.-History:It was founded on April 5, 1877, by Hermann Blohm and Ernst Voss as a...
in Hamburg opened an aircraft subsidiary under the name of Hamburger Flugzeugbau
Hamburger Flugzeugbau
Hamburger Flugzeugbau was an aircraft company, located in the Finkenwerder quarter of Hamburg, Germany. Originally established in July 1933 as a subsidiary of the Blohm & Voss shipyards, it has managed to survive under different names as part of different consortia from its German national...
. RLM awarded this factory the designation Ha. However the connection with 'Hamburgs tradition' Blohm & Voss was just too strong to be neglected and the aircraft coming from the Hamburger Flugzeugwerke were commonly known as 'Blohm & Voss type Ha xxx' . Finally the RLM caved in to popular views and gave the factory a new designation BV for Blohm & Voss.
Bayerische Flugzeugwerke ("Bavarian Aircraft Works") was founded in 1926 out of the bankrupt remainder of former Udet flugzeugbau. Originally producing its legacy of Udet-designed sportsplanes, it later went on to secure the services of Willy Messerschmitt
Willy Messerschmitt
Wilhelm Emil "Willy" Messerschmitt was a German aircraft designer and manufacturer. He was born in Frankfurt am Main, the son of a wine merchant...
, not as a chief engineer but as a free-lance designer. Thus BFW in Munich and Augsburg would produce and distribute designs from Flugzeugbau Messerschmitt in Bamberg. For some reason, (and also in part because of a deep personal animosity between Willy Messerschmitt and State Secretary of Aviation Erhard Milch
Erhard Milch
Erhard Milch was a German Field Marshal who oversaw the development of the Luftwaffe as part of the re-armament of Germany following World War I, and served as founding Director of Deutsche Luft Hansa...
) the RLM awarded the manufacturers designation NOT to Messerschmitt but to BFW and thus Messerschmitt's record sportsplane design M 37 was produced as the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke Bf 108. Dissatisfied with this settlement, Messerschmitt himself used the money from the sales of his designs to buy a tract of land in Regensburg, founded the Messerschmitt GmbH aircraft factory and planned (or threatened) to start aircraft production on his own. Forced to choose between giving Messerschmitt his due and becoming a pure subcontractor, on 11 July 1938 the Bayerische Flugzeugwerke took on Messerschmitt as chairman and managing director, took over the Regensburg plant and renamed itself the Messerschmitt AG
Messerschmitt
Messerschmitt AG was a famous German aircraft manufacturing corporation named for its chief designer, Willy Messerschmitt, and known primarily for its World War II fighter aircraft, notably the Bf 109 and Me 262...
. The RLM assigned this 'new' factory the designation Me. The first aircraft to benefit from the change was the Me 210. Nevertheless the three aircraft Bf 108, 109 and 110 officially kept their Bf prefix, due to their pre-July 1938 origins, until the end.
In 1933, the RLM found that its aircraft production was concentrated too much in the South and West of the country and therefore asked Hanns Klemm to relocate his factory Klemm Flugzeugbau
Klemm
The Klemm Leichtflugzeugbau GmbH was a German aircraft manufacturer noteworthy for sports and touring planes of the 1930s.The company was founded in Böblingen in 1926 by Dr...
from Böblingen in Bavaria to the town of Halle in Saxony. Unwilling to leave his 'home turf,' Klemm teamed up with financier Fritz Siebel and founded Flugzeugbau Halle: a completely new factory in Halle license-building Klemm designs under the RLM designation Fh. However by the time the first Halle design, the Fh 104 (that started its life on the drawing board still as the Klemm
Klemm
The Klemm Leichtflugzeugbau GmbH was a German aircraft manufacturer noteworthy for sports and touring planes of the 1930s.The company was founded in Böblingen in 1926 by Dr...
Kl 104) had flown in 1937, Siebel became majority shareholder of the new factory, bought in his own design team and renamed the factory Siebel Flugzeugwerke KG
Siebel
Siebel, originally Flugzeugbau Halle, was a German aircraft manufacturer founded in 1937 in Halle an der Saale. It was revived as Siebelwerke in 1948. In 1952, it merged with ATG to form Siebelwerke-ATG Gmbh...
, henceforth producing his own designs under the RLM letter designation Si.
Also in 1933, the glider schools of the Rhön-Rossitten Gesellschaft
Rhön-Rossitten Gesellschaft
The Rhön-Rossitten Gesellschaft or Rhön-Rossitten Society was a German gliding organization, the first one in the world that was officially recognised...
were incorporated into the Hitlerjugend, while its construction and research team continued as a pure experimental think tank under the name Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug
Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug
The Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug, or DFS was formed in 1933 to centralise all gliding activity in Germany...
or simply DFS. Although the DFS was a pure research facility and lacked the means of series production, several of its designs were license-built by various aircraft factories. Uncharacteristic for the RLM, these designs retained the 3-letter all-capital designation DFS.
A list of the most notable changes in designation appears below:
| New designation | Official name | Former name | replaced designation |
|---|---|---|---|
| BV | Blohm + Voss | Hamburger Flugzeugbau Hamburger Flugzeugbau Hamburger Flugzeugbau was an aircraft company, located in the Finkenwerder quarter of Hamburg, Germany. Originally established in July 1933 as a subsidiary of the Blohm & Voss shipyards, it has managed to survive under different names as part of different consortia from its German national... |
Ha |
| Me | Messerschmitt Messerschmitt Messerschmitt AG was a famous German aircraft manufacturing corporation named for its chief designer, Willy Messerschmitt, and known primarily for its World War II fighter aircraft, notably the Bf 109 and Me 262... |
Bayerische Flugzeugwerke | Bf (after July 1938) |
| Si | Siebel Siebel Siebel, originally Flugzeugbau Halle, was a German aircraft manufacturer founded in 1937 in Halle an der Saale. It was revived as Siebelwerke in 1948. In 1952, it merged with ATG to form Siebelwerke-ATG Gmbh... |
Flugzeugwerk Halle | Fh |
| DFS | Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug The Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug, or DFS was formed in 1933 to centralise all gliding activity in Germany... |
(Rhön-Rossitten Gesellschaft Rhön-Rossitten Gesellschaft The Rhön-Rossitten Gesellschaft or Rhön-Rossitten Society was a German gliding organization, the first one in the world that was officially recognised... ) |
|
Evolution of the designation system
By the time the Second World War started, manufacturers 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 88Junkers Ju 88
The Junkers Ju 88 was a World War II German Luftwaffe twin-engine, multi-role aircraft. Designed by Hugo Junkers' company through the services of two American aviation engineers in the mid-1930s, it suffered from a number of technical problems during the later stages of its development and early...
formed the basis for the Ju 188
Junkers Ju 188
The Junkers Ju 188 was a German Luftwaffe high-performance medium bomber built during World War II, the planned follow-on to the famed Ju 88 with better performance and payload...
, Ju 288
Junkers Ju 288
|-See also:-References:NotesBibliography* Hitchcock, Thomas H. Junkers 288 . Acton, MA: Monogram Aviation Publications, 1974. ISBN 0-914144-02-2.-External links:...
, Ju 388
Junkers Ju 388
The Junkers Ju 388 Störtebeker was a World War II German Luftwaffe multi-role aircraft based on the Ju 88 airframe by way of the Ju 188. It differed from its predecessors in being intended for high altitude operation, with design features such as a pressurized cockpit for its crew...
, and Ju 488
Junkers Ju 488
-References:* Filly, Brian. Junkers Ju 88 in Action, part 2. Carrollton, TX: Squadron/Signal Publications, Inc., 1991.* Green, William. War Planes of the Second World War:Volume Ten Bombers and Reconnaissance Aircraft. London:Macdonald, 1968....
.
Another change in the system was the gradual replacement of the two-letter prefix for the constructor with a prefix for the designer. Almost from the beginning the RLM used an elaborate system of licence-building and subcontracting to maximize its output of huge numbers of relatively few types of 'standard equipment' airplanes. Initially, the factory that designed the plane maintained the biggest share of that planes production. With the war proceeding, the Luftwaffe's need for fresh airplanes quickly outpaced the capacity of the original manufacturers, certainly with its factories now regularly being bombed by the Allies
Allies of World War II
The Allies of World War II were the countries that opposed the Axis powers during the Second World War . Former Axis states contributing to the Allied victory are not considered Allied states...
. As a result the connection between aircraft and original manufacturer eventually lost its significance. Aircraft were now built by a variety of factories often without any links to the constructor whose name it bore. Furthermore, aircraft engineers and designers, a hot commodity for a constructor and therefore aggressively courted and headhunted, were famous for their tendency to leave one company for the next bigger one every few years. Finally more and more of them started their own aircraft development company under their own name. The RLM followed suit by giving their products a two-letter designation reflecting the constructor's name rather than the constructor he (originally) worked for. To further complicate things, those new design bureaus were often assigned ranges of aircraft numbers formerly assigned to other constructors but unused. Thus when Focke-Wulf's chief constructor Kurt Tank
Kurt Tank
Kurt Waldemar Tank was a German aeronautical engineer and test pilot, heading the design department at Focke-Wulf from 1931-45. He designed several important aircraft of World War II, including the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter aircraft.-Early life:Tank was born in Bromberg , Province of Posen...
founded his own design bureau he got assigned the prefix Ta and the numbers 151 through 154. As a result, the further development of his Focke-Wulf Fw 190
Focke-Wulf Fw 190
The Focke-Wulf Fw 190 Würger was a German Second World War single-seat, single-engine fighter aircraft designed by Kurt Tank in the late 1930s. Powered by a radial engine, the 190 had ample power and was able to lift larger loads than its well-known counterpart, the Messerschmitt Bf 109...
became the Tank Ta 152 but remained commonly known as the Focke-Wulf Ta 152
Focke-Wulf Ta 152
The Focke-Wulf Ta 152 was a World War II German high-altitude fighter-interceptor designed by Kurt Tank and produced by Focke-Wulf. The Ta 152 was a development of the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 aircraft...
.
| New designation | Designer (or design team) |
Former manufacturer | replaced designation |
|---|---|---|---|
| Ka | Albert Kalkert | Gothaer Waggonfabrik Gothaer Waggonfabrik Gothaer Waggonfabrik was a German manufacturer of rolling stock established in the late nineteenth century at Gotha. During the two world wars, the company expanded into aircraft building.-World War I:... |
Go |
| Hü | Dr. Ing. Ulrich Hütter Hutter Hutter or Hütter is a surname of German origin that refers to:*Gero Hütter , German hematologist, known for performing a bone marrow transplant on a patient with HIV*Gregory Hutter , American composer... |
None (university professor) | He (*) |
| Li | Alexander Lippisch Alexander Lippisch Alexander Martin Lippisch was a German pioneer of aerodynamics. He made important contributions to the understanding of flying wings, delta wings and the ground effect. His most famous design is the Messerschmitt Me 163 rocket-powered interceptor.Lippisch was born in Munich, Kingdom of Bavaria... |
DFS, Messerschmitt | DFS / Me |
| Ta | Kurt Tank Kurt Tank Kurt Waldemar Tank was a German aeronautical engineer and test pilot, heading the design department at Focke-Wulf from 1931-45. He designed several important aircraft of World War II, including the Focke-Wulf Fw 190 fighter aircraft.-Early life:Tank was born in Bromberg , Province of Posen... |
Focke-Wulf Focke-Wulf Focke-Wulf Flugzeugbau AG was a German manufacturer of civil and military aircraft before and during World War II. Many of the company's successful fighter aircraft designs were slight modifications of the Focke-Wulf Fw 190.-History:... |
Fw |
(*) Although Hütter never worked for Heinkel, his only aircraft project, the Hü 211
Hütter Hü 211
|-References:NotesBibliography* Luftwaffe Secret Projects - Ground Attack & Special Purpose Aircraft, D. Herwig & H. Rode, ISBN 1-85780-150-4...
was a development of the Heinkel 219 with a new high-ratio high-performance wing.
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.
(For see the RLM airplanes arranged by manufactuer, see RLM aircraft by manufacturer
RLM aircraft by manufacturer
-Albatros:*Albatros Al 101, 'L 101', two-seat sportsplane + trainer, 1930 *Albatros Al 102, 'L 102', two-seat sportsplane + trainer, 1931 *Albatros Al 103, 'L 103', two-seat sportsplane + trainer, 1932-Arado:*Arado Ar 64, fighter...
)
Factory Identification Codes
Related content
- List of RLM paint designations
- List of aircraft engines of Germany during World War II
- List of weapons of military aircraft of Germany during World War II
- RLM numbering system for gliders and sailplanesRLM numbering system for gliders and sailplanesContrary to the methods used by the Reich Air Ministry for the allocation of aircraft designations, the designers and manufacturers of sailplanes and gliders in Germany enjoyed the freedom of choosing their own designations for their products up until 1945.Thus a bird name like Habicht could be...
- RLM aircraft by manufacturerRLM aircraft by manufacturer-Albatros:*Albatros Al 101, 'L 101', two-seat sportsplane + trainer, 1930 *Albatros Al 102, 'L 102', two-seat sportsplane + trainer, 1931 *Albatros Al 103, 'L 103', two-seat sportsplane + trainer, 1932-Arado:*Arado Ar 64, fighter...
See also
- Common WW2 Weapons
- List of aircraft of the Armée de l'Air
- List of Sailplanes