Thanks everyone. I mentioned earlier that I've changed my thoughts on the final scheme again. Good thing we kept the title "Provisional scheme" but I've now decided to go back to Paul's suggestion to do Dietrich Puttfarken's 410 of 5/KG 51 as it may have appeared on the night of his loss on April 22/23, 1944. There's been a lot of interesting discussion on this subject in this forum and others and Paul's been very kind in sending me some background info on a similar plane in which Lt Wolfgang Wenning and his B/F were shot down a few days before. The thing is, no matter what the ultimate scheme is that I will present, it will at best be the summation of various expert opinions, sometimes conflicting as there are no known pictures of this plane, nor any in this unit as far as I'm able to surmize. So, on that note, here are the minimum features that I have decided to go with based on best availble info, unless someone can prove these to be false:
- Overall camo will be standard 74/75/76 oversprayed with black on the undersides and up the sides
- Variant will be Me 410 A-1/U2 with twin MG 151's in the weapons bay
- Flame arrestors over exhausts
- FuG 101 radar altimeter antennae under starboard wing, no other radar.
- aircraft code 9K+MN with small 9K, large M in red, outlined in white, and large N in black
- W. Nr. 420314 will be overpainted in black (solves one decal problem!)
Having said that, here are the things I have not settled on as yet, subject to the best advice I can get:
- Spinner colours and pattern
- presence of KG 51 Edelweiss or II Gruppe shield
If anyone can provide an educated basis for the latter two points, I'd appreciate that.