Three Mustangs off the plates
The Mustang has always flown in plain bare metal. The book of profile plates on the desk has three of them on facing pages: a blue-nosed Mustang from Norfolk, a famous ace's olive-drab fighter, and a black-banded group commander's ship from Okinawa. Now all three fly over the Brick Sea, and the first one is already yours.
Pattie Ann, from the factory
Pick the Mustang and she's already waiting: Pattie Ann, a P-51B of the 352nd Fighter Group, flying out of Bodney in Norfolk in the summer of 1944. The group painted its noses bright blue, and hers runs all the way back to the windscreen, with PATTIE ANN in white under the exhaust stacks.
Behind the cockpit she wears the invasion stripes painted on for D-Day, five bands of black and white round the fuselage and across both wings. The squadron's black PE sits ahead of them and her own T behind. Up on the fin there's a red cap and trim tab, a big black T and her serial. The propeller tips are yellow.
You'll see her everywhere, because every Mustang in the sky flies her paint now. The paint shop calls her by name on the Mustang's swatch, and the hangar card shows her turning before you pick anything at all.
Banks' Sunshine: 9 air kills
Lieutenant Colonel William Banks led the 348th Fighter Group, and flew Sunshine off Okinawa in the summer of 1945. Earn 9 air kills, his own tally, and she's yours.
She's bare metal with a black nose and spine, and black bands round the fuselage and across both wings. The spinner is banded green, yellow and red. A black band runs up the tail with white letters stacked down it, and a ship's wheel sits on the rudder. Under the windscreen are nine kill flags, and SUNSHINE is painted in black on the cowling.
Gentile's Shangri-La: 22 air kills
Captain Don Gentile flew Shangri-La with the 4th Fighter Group out of Debden in the spring of 1944, and finished with nearly twenty-two victories. Earn 22 air kills and his Mustang is yours.
She wears olive drab over grey, with a red nose and spinner and three rows of red-and-white checks behind them. The group's fighting eagle throws a punch from an orange disc on the nose. A white scroll under the canopy carries rows of black crosses, one for each victory, and the codes VF and T are in white down the flanks.
Where to find them
Both paint only the Mustang, so they only show up in the paint row when the Mustang is your pick. Hover a locked swatch and the hangar card tries it on, so you can see what the kills buy. Climb into something else and that aircraft flies its own factory paint.
The plain paint schemes, like Midnight Reaper, now repaint the whole Mustang too, top to belly, nose ring and all.