RLM Aircraft Designation System - Prototypes and Variants

Prototypes and Variants

After February 1935, each individual prototype aircraft were suffixed with "V" (for Versuch German: "prototype") and a unique identification number. So, for example, the Me 262 V3 was the third prototype of the Me 262 built. Later in World War II, with such aircraft as the Heinkel He 162, other letters such as "M" for Muster (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, which emerged as an almost totally new design by later in 1943, received the designation Heinkel He 277.