JohnTerrell wrote:
You can tell the aircraft had been in action for quite a while - still sporting the ID-bands from the summer/fall of '44, but now photographed in the late spring/possibly very early summer of '45. The tail serial may have been touched-up - it is however the standard, distinctive, NAA Dallas application (which differed compared to the Inglewood examples) and with standard NAA letter-type/stencil form for the tail serial numbers. The data block may have simply worn away with numerous repeated washing/polishing off exhaust stains after each mission (or maybe, perhaps, even earlier artwork that had been painted in that location, but was later removed). Actually many of the factory-applied stencils are worn/washed/polished away, while the paint of the factory-applied stars & bars is still holding up very well too.
As this one is such an early version of the -D, it still has a white recognition light on the spine (just aft of the antenna mast), not seen after the D-5/K-1 production blocks. It has the early, curved (factory-installed) dorsal fin fillet. It has been post-factory modified, in the field, with a K-14 gunsight and the APS-13 tail warning set. Inside the Dallas-canopy is a P-38 mirror (just the mirror, not the fairing) which has been bolted to the plexiglass. The blue applied to the wheel hubs is another of the colors/paints you often see on 359th FG Mustangs - in some other cases, more predominantly. When viewed in the full/high resolution, you can clearly see the random factory use of both silver anodized and yellow iridite rivets, the bright areas of acid-etching on the metal where spot welding was done, the yellowing of varnish covering at least one of the stencils (one of the few that remain), and a post-factory/in-field stencil applied just aft of the fuselage fuel tank filler cap - reading the standard message of "Service With 130 Grade Fuel". I also really like the brush marks up and down the rear edge of the fuselage/tail, from the painting of the rudder - they masked-it pretty well around the serial number, with some nice straight edges, but they didn't keep the paint only on the rudder.
Hi John,
Your P-51 knowledge is remarkable, many thanks for providing this detailed information.
Happy Holidays, Steve