Question about 21C's Lou IV P-51D

Lefty · Post by **Lefty** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 11:48 am

I love my Lou IV, but I saw the picture below and wondered if there were different versions/paint schemes for this plane? Any help/info. is appreciated!

Flytiger · Post by **Flytiger** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 2:08 pm

Col Tom Christian, Jr. was the CO of the 361st and was killed in August of 1944.

A few of the 361st's D model Mustangs got a form of the blue treatment. The story goes the planes were arriving in natural metal and were headed to forward air strips on the European continent so they had to have some form of camo and there was a shortage of green for a period of time.

Most of the artwork on the market uses the green version which is the one in which he flew his last mission.

The plane in your picture (44-63350) is Chuck Greenhill's air show bird and reflects their depiction of what it might have been like earlier.

tmanthegreat · Post by **tmanthegreat** » Wed Jul 19, 2006 2:11 pm

Here's a color photo of the actual aircraft (at the top). Its in the green scheme, making the 21c version accurate, even if it was the last plane Col Christensen flew

Part of me wants to see this scheme rehashed in the XD retooled Mustang, but then my S1 plane would loose some of its uniqueness.

Lefty · Post by **Lefty** » Thu Jul 20, 2006 9:03 am

Very cool - thanks for the info.; I'm thinking of trying my first custom 1:18 scale plane and was wanting to either do a blue Lou IV or a blue one like the one below or possibly the red nose/striped version of the American Beauty/Lovely Lila plane.