Keep in mind that the theater bands and red nose were painted at the depot before delivery to the Groups. They were not outlined in black. It was standard for all the groups to have red noses and yellow ID bands.
http://s152.photobucket.com/user/guppy35/media/MTOMarkings.jpg.htm
This is an image from the depot where they were assembling the Mustangs to get them ready for the Groups. Note the placement of the bands on these 51Cs, as well as the already painted nose. Any other Group markings were done once they arrived at that Group. So the yellow tails of the 52nd, the striped of the 31st the checkerboards of the 35th or the red tails of the 33nd were all done once they became operational. So the variety you'll see is in the group markings, but not the theater markings.
http://i152.photobucket.com/albums/s199/guppy35/MTOBands.jpg[/img][/URL]
Actually, we have cases where they were outlined in black and others were even outlined in WHITE.
Variations I’ve seen:
- Inner bands outlined in black (like this one apparently).
- Outer bands outlined in black (like Jo-Baby, 4FS, WD*D).
- Inner and outer bands outlined in white (Abdul’s Baby, 4FS, WD*A).
- Non-outlined inner and outer bands (5FS, VF*D).
- Non-outlined outer bands only with nothing inboard (Meg X, 4FS, WD*L).
- Non-outlined inner bands only with nothing outboard (like Wee Willie, 2FS, QP*C).
This airplane has a bunch of odd stuff about it all in one place. The bands are outboard of the gear doors so I'm wondering if they're located as shown in your schematic. I'll give that another look. (Edit: They look to be between the gear doors and the wing pylon.)
If the photo does not actually show the black borders I’ll remove them. Consensus seems to be they’re bordered.
I’m still not convinced the wingtips are yellow.
