Time to start painting and I have to face the conflicting photographic evidence I have. Wiki says there were two prototypes and only one flew. Then one of them was scraped and the other is in National Air & Space. Trying to put the five good photos in order is full of guesswork and assumption. The first image is from a youtube film that can be seen on
Shinpachi
thread on page 15. It shows this marking while taxing and i think then flying for the first time. I don't see the little wheels on the tails and the ground crew are then seen looking at the prop because it over rotated and hit the ground. It ends with wheels installed and a successful flight. You can't tell if the marking is still there or not.
I want to use this marking and if it means taking the little wheels off, so I won't have to paint them, so be it. The 3 flights were August 3, 6 and 9. The next one is for sure just after capture. There is no yellow marking and the prop has a yellow stripe "in the front" on the prop. You can see a wheel on the right tail.
I think this is about the same time and the same plane. No marking, stripe just visible on lowest prop and wheels; the paint looks pretty decent.
This one seems to be years later. There don't seem to be stripes on the back of the prop, where you also need them, and some panels are missing paint.
This is the example we have today. At first I thought this panel was missing paint, but I saw another photo so this is sunlight.
After much internal debate, I want to model the second flight version with the wheels. I may watch the film a few more times to convince myself that I can see the marking. The wiki page says NASM claims this is the first one, but other sources claim it is the second.