RLM aircraft designation system
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The 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 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 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:
| Al | Albatros | Fg | Flugtechnische Fertigungsgemeinschaft Prag | Ho | Reimar und Walter Horten |
| Ar | Arado | Fh | Flugzeugwerk Halle | Hs | Henschel |
| As | Argus Motoren | Fi | Fieseler | Ju | Junkers |
| Ba | Bachem | FK | Flugzeugbau Kiel | Kl | Klemm Flugzeugbau |
| Bf | Bayerische Flugzeugwerke (later Messerschmitt AG) | Fl | Flettner | NR | Nagler-Rolz |
| Bü | Bücker | Fw | Focke-Wulf | So | Heinz Sombold |
| BV | Blohm + Voss | Go | Gothaer Waggonfabrik | Sk | Skoda-Kauba |
| DFS | Deutsche Forschungsanstalt für Segelflug | Ha | Hamburger Flugzeugbau | We | Weser Flugzeugbau |
| Do | Dornier | He | Heinkel | ZMe | Zeppelin/Messerschmitt |
| Fa | Focke-Achgelis | HM | Hirth Flugmotoren | ZSo | Zeppelin/SNCASO |
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 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 Ju 188, Ju 288, Ju 388, and 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:
| New designation | Designer (or design team) | old manufacturer | replaces designation | Ka | Albert Kalkert | Gothaer Waggonfabrik | Go |
| Hü | Dr. Ing. Ulrich Hütter | None (university professor) | He(*) | Li | Alexander Lippisch | DFS, Messerschmitt | (**) |
| Me | Messerschmitt | Bayerische Flugzeugwerke | Bf |
| Si | Siebel | Flugzeugwerk Halle | Fh |
| Ta | Kurt Tank | Focke-Wulf | Fw |
| Wn | Wiener-Neustädter-Flugzeugwerke | the Messerschmitt factory in Vienna | (***) |
| BV | Blohm + Voss | Hamburger Flugzeugbau | Ha |
(**) 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)
- WW2 Luftwaffe aircraft engines
- WW2 Luftwaffe aircraft weapons
- RLM aircraft by manufacturer
External links
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