"Mornin' Cap'n, your lady sir, refueled and rearmed, checked and rechecked, all polished ready to take on the skies"

NAA P-51D-15-NA Mustang, 352nd FG, 487th FS, Bodney, Summer 1944

About time to draw another full drawing. I liked paint schemes used by USAAF during later period of WW2 all the way to the Korea, while other warplanes shy away with their matte camouflage these planes, with their polished alumunium finish and bright colorful marking, simply scream out their position looking for trouble

By 1944 anyway, allied air forces had maintained air superiority against German Luftwaffe over western front, and camouflage gradually ceased to be applied on certain airframes to reduce weight, drag and time spent on production line. USN and USAAF planes on Pacific theater however continued to be painted to combat corrosive and abrasive environment on coast and oceans

The 352nd FG were famous for their blue painted noses, and the fact that they were based on RAF Bodney giving them nickname 'Blue Nosed Bastards of Bodney', it encompasses three fighter squadrons: 487th FS (code HO, blue rudder), 486th FS (code PZ, yellow rudder) and 328th FS (code PE, red rudder). They converted to P-51 from P-47 on 8 April 1944

S/N 44-15369 was a block 15 Mustang manufactured at North American plant at Inglewood, CA, here depicted as HO-Q 'Mississippi Miss', the real 44-15369 however was named 'Sweet Fern' and flown by Lt. Albert Peterson. Block 15 and later differs from earlier blocks by having dorsal fin extension and some interior tidbits e.g. fuel pressure gauges