I’m prepping for the next build in my Mustang series (see http://www.larryzdaily.net/mustangs.html ). The aircraft that I’ve selected to model is P-51D 44-63451. It was assigned to the 46th FS of the 21rst FG on Iwo Jima and was piloted by Robert Louwers, who nicknamed it for his wife Mary Alyce. The 46th painted the spinners, wing tips, tips of the horizontal stabilizers, and a stripe on the tail blue. My question is: what color blue? I’ve seen a number of color renditions around the Web (mostly from 3D sims) and the shades of blue used vary from something fairly near sky blue to something near the blue on the US flag. The only photo I’ve seen of the aircraft was, of course, black and white.
A Japanese modeler has published an article on the web in which he covers his build of the particular airframe. He used Mr. Color 65, “India Blue”, which seems to mirror the color photos of other ships from this squadron and the blue used in the unit crest. The address below will redirect you to that article:
Thanks for the reply. I’d seen the site in Japanese and I have a bottle of the Mr. Color blue on the way. I also searched through paint lists and found a listing that Model Masters French Blue was a good sub for the Mr. Color blue.
I just like to model from photos of the prototype when I can. Thanks for mentioning the squadron insignia. I hadn’t thought of that and I’ve now found a color image of it. I’ve yet to dig up any color photos of Mustangs from the 46th, though.
richs26 - it sure does. I’d forgotten that I even had that book (and Vol. 2). In neither one, though, does he mention medium blue in the discussion of colors. Back to beating on Google to see if I can come up with the right set of search terms to give me a color photo of a Mustang from the 46th.
Well, it has taken me a long time to get to this point (work actually expected me to do my job, if you can imagine), but here’s where I am with Mary Alyce at this point.
Thanks for the kind words. This is my second attempt at a natural metal finish. I learned a lot from the first one. The model is the Tamiya 1/48 scale kit.
Almost there. There are a couple of small things I want to touch up and I need to finish and install the Brassin 75 gallon drop tanks, but Mary Alyce is pretty much done.
The blue squardon markings were part of what attracted me to this aircraft. My Mustang collection currently includes red, yellow, and white, so the blue stands out.
