Airframe history

The aircraft was built in 1944 and never saw any combat action during WWII. In January 1951 it was delivered to the Royal Canadian Air Force as 9279, where it remained in service until 1958. It was then acquired by several civilian owners and in 1980 it was sold to the Scandinavian Historic Flight.

The aircraft then underwent an extensive restoration by Vintage Aircraft Ltd. In 1986, Anders Saether flew her across the Atlantic to Norway.

In 1989, she participated in the movie “Memphis Belle” and was painted olive drab and named “Cisco” for the occasion. In 2009, George Lucas made a movie about the Tuskegee Airmen which was shot at a disused Soviet airfield near Prague, Czech Republic. N167F was one of three P-51s to be used in the movie and all three were temporarily repainted in 332nd FG colors for the occasion. Pictures of N167F in "Memphis Belle" and "Red Tails" movie colors can be found in the contributor photo section at the botton of this page.

After a lengthy ownership by the Scandinavian Historic Flight, where she was repainted as Bud Anderson' Old Crow (Olive Drab version), 357th FG, 363rd FS, she was sold in 2012 to Nordic Warbirds, Västerås, Sweden.

Youtube video clips of N167F in various movies:

Red Tails - filming clip 1	Red Tails - filming clip 2	Red Tails - filming clip 3	N167F at Oppenheim airshow	N167F in bare metal paintscheme

Paintscheme information

P-51D, N167F is currently painted in the colors of Col. Clarence E. “Bud” Anderson's “Old Crow”, 357th FG, 363 FS.

The name

If we may believe Mr. Anderson, the his aircraft were named after the smartest bird that flies in the sky, the Crow. His wartime drinking buddies however all knew that it was named after that good old Kentucky straight bourbon whiskey of the same name.

The pilot

Colonel Clarence E. "Bud" Anderson is a WW II Triple Ace fighter pilot and a veteran military experimental test pilot.

During WW II he served two combat tours escorting heavy bomber over Europe in the P-51 Mustang, from November, 1943, through January, 1945. He flew 116 combat mission (480 hrs) and destroyed 16.25 enemy aircraft in aerial combat and another one on the ground.

The paint scheme

The 357th FG arrived in England at the turn of 1943-1944 and was committed to combat on February 11th, 1944. Initially assigned to be part of the 9th AF, they were traded to the 8th AF in exchange for the P-47 Thunderbolt equipped 358th FG. As a result the Group moved from Raydon to Leiston.

Since they were issues the P-51B Mustang in November of 1943, whilst assigned to the 9th AF, they also became the first Group of the 8th AF (after the trade with the 358th FG) to fly the P-51 Mustang and they were also the first to put allied fighters over the skies of Berlin on March 4th, 1944 (along with three 4th FG Squadrons) and had the highest number of aces in the 8th AF (43), five of which were triple aces. Bud was one of those.

They are credited with 695 aerial victories, second only to the 56th FG (which was in combat much longer)

With the move to Leiston, near the town of Yoxford, it would take long before the nickname "The Yoxford Boys" would stick to the 357th FG. As mentioned above, the Group was equipped with P-51 Mustangs (B-model) from the very beginning.

By mid March of 1944, Group colors were issues and the 357th Fighter Group adopted a red & yellow checkerboard color pattern. The spinners of the aircraft were devided equally into three bands of red, yellow and red.

The original consignment of B and C-model Mustangs allocated to the 357th FG bore a factory applied two-colour paint scheme of Olive Drab over Neutral Grey. When the 357th began receiving replacement Mustangs that lacked this camouflage (April 1944), the Group adopted a policy of painting all natural metal finished combat aircraft with their own two-colour camouflage paint scheme.

The colours used by the 357th varied considerably due to a wide assortment of supply sources. The upper colours ranged from OD to a dark green. The under surfaces ran the gambit from a standard US Neutral Grey to a light grey. In June of the same year, a few of the Groups Mustangs received a partial green paint treatment to the upper wing and top fuselage/tail plane surfaces. This often included the full rudder surface area.

Another handful simply had the anti-glare panel extended to the rear of the canopy and ultimately intersected the base of the vertical stabilizer.

With the introduction of Invasion Stripes in early June 1944 the squadron codes were either masked-out prior to the application of the D-Day Stripes or removed entirely and later reinstated further forward on the fuselage using the orginal white paint. A third, less used option, was “image masking”: the codes when applying the Invasion Stripes and than adding a contrasting black or white contour outline to these codes once the stripes had been applied and masking removed.

The original 357th FG Mustangs displayed the standard white QIM markings until the group adopted its dual colour high visibility nose markings in March of 1944. When Invasion Stripes were ordered immediately prior to the D-Day landings, the 357th complied with the directive with one quite notable exception: the upper wing surfaces of all the Groups aircraft continued to carry the original white QIM stripes instead of the normal two-colour Invasion Stripes.

The application of two-colour camouflaged paint schemes in the 357th FG had ceased by early October 1944. By January 1945 all such paint had been in fact removed and the 357th displayed metal finishes until the wars end.

By the beginning of April 1944, the 357th FG was well on its way to completing the application of the Groups recently assigned high visibility nose markings on all squadron aircraft. It consisted of a two-colour spinner, equally divided into three parts of red, yellow and white, proceeding two rows of alternating 6-inch red and yellow rectangles that entirely encircled the forward fuselage engine cowling.

The 357th FG comprised of three Fighter Squadrons: the 362nd FS, the 363rd FS and the 364th FS. When the AF began using Squadron identification colors, the 357th FG Squadrons were recognized as follows:

• 362nd FS: they did not adopt and identification colour and their P-51s rudders remained in either Olive Drab, or later natural metal finishes until the end of the war. Their aircraft code was "G4"
• 363rd FS: painted their rudders in Insignia Red and wore aircraft code "B6"
• 364th FS: painted their rudders in Identification Yellow and wore aircraft code "C5"

The rudder digits on 364th FS aircraft were repainted utilizing the original black colour while these same numbers were reinstated in both black and yellow on 363rd FS applications.

For more information on the following general P-51 markings, please click their appropriate links:
D-Day markings
US National Insignia markings
General P-51 markings

44-73877 is thus painted as P51D-10NA Old Crow 44-14450, which Bud flew on his second tour. Bud did actually fly an olive drab P-51D named “Old Crow”. Later, the paint was stripped from the airframe and it flew the remainder of its tour in bare metal, still wearing the same name. So essentially, the photos of the olive drab P-51D and the bare metal P-51D are the same aircraft.

The name "Old Crow" lays along the upper cowl seam on both sides with the serifs on the port "O" and starboard "W" barely touching the checkerboard. The name placard for pilot & crew lays along seam with upper right corner against canopy frame without overlapping it.  Note that this version contained only the pilot and crew chief's names. Name Plate info:

Pilot
Capt C E Anderson
C/C Heino
Arm Zimmermann

Old Crow's victory Board sports 13 standard black cross/white borders in the first three columns and two in last two.  The top row rests squarely atop panel seam.  The gap between the second and third columns lines up directly beneath canopy-windscreen joint.

The numbers "414" of the tail number were painted on the fin and the last three digits "450" on the rudder. All were in Identification Yellow.

Presumably, the timeframe of the paint scheme of N167F is situated somewhere between August 6th, 1944 and October of 1944:

• The Invasion Stripes were changed to their “half markings” on August 6th , 1944
• Capt. Anderson scored his 13th aerial kill on July 7th , 1944 and N167F displays 13 kill markings
• N167F has an unpainted rudder. The 363rd did not adopt Insignia Red rudders until late October of 1944.
• The D-Day half stripes were carried after July, 1944

The Group were starting to use D-models in May of 1944, but since Bud was close to the end of his tour he decided to stay with his B-model Old Crow, rather than take some new airplane and shake all the bugs out.

Bud's new D-model Mustang was initially painted Olive Drab on top and Neutral Grey on the bottom. This made the Mustang blend into the ground when viewed from above. However, as winter was approaching and the ground was covered with snow, the green camouflage had no purpose. All the paint also added extra weight to the airframe.

Bud recalls: "A silver plane would blend into the snow far better than a green airplane would. Stripping the paint off a Mustang was no simple thing, though. It is no simple thing to take the paint off a car and a P-51 is much bigger. Stripping Old Crow figured to take several men several days, but there was no urgency to it - the next time I took some time off would have been fine, and so I put my name on the board for the next morning's mission.

When I walked to my aircraft the following morning, it was gleaming bare metal. Otto Heino, Mel Schueneman and Leon Zimmermann had stayed up the whole night through, hand-rubbing the paint off with rags soaked in gasoline. In the process, they had rubbed most of the skin off their hands.

No one asked them to do that. No one expected it. No one ever expected or asked them to change the spark plugs after each mission, either. Not every crew did that. But they did. Old Crow was as much their plane as mine."

N167F however does not sport the nifty whitewall tires of then-Captain Anderson's model. These were painted on with white barn paint.

Pictures of N167F Old Crow

Walkaround pictures of N167F Old Crow

Contributor pictures of N167F Old Crow

Left to right, top to bottom:

1. © Derek Ferguson - N167F was repainted as "Cisco" during the filming of "Memphis Belle". Picture taken at Duxford, July 2nd, 1989
2. © Malcolm Clarke - N167F in its previous "Old Crow" bare metal paintscheme
3. © Anders Sørby - N167F at Lillestrom with a beautiful backdrop
4. © Suchy - N167F repainted in 332nd FG "Tuskegee Airmen" colors for the 2009 George Lucas film "Red Tails"
5. © Zdenek Hatas - N167F repainted in 332nd FG "Tuskegee Airmen" colors for the 2009 George Lucas film "Red Tails"
6. © Zdenek Hatas - N167F repainted in 332nd FG "Tuskegee Airmen" colors for the 2009 George Lucas film "Red Tails"
7. © Ian Kirby - again showing N167F in its previous bare metal "Old Crow" paint scheme. Picture taken at Duxford on July 2nd, 1996
8. © Michael J. Freer - another paint scheme N167F used to wear was that of the 361st FG "Detroit Miss". Picture taken at Duxford on July 9th, 2000
9. © Jean-Marie Hanon - Picture taken at Spa/La Sauveniere, Belgium on August 9th, 2009
10. © Jean-Marie Hanon - Picture taken at Spa/La Sauveniere, Belgium on August 9th, 2009
11. © Christer Sidelöv - Nice air to air shot of N167F Old Crow in bare metal finish. Picture taken over Sweden on June 9th, 1991. In formation is the SHF A-26
12. © Christer Sidelöv - Nice air to air shot of N167F Old Crow in bare metal finish. Picture taken over Sweden on June 9th, 1991.
13. © Christer Sidelöv - Nice air to air shot of N167F Old Crow in bare metal finish. Picture taken over Sweden on June 9th, 1991.
14. © Michael Ziem - Picture taken at Bonn Hangelar in 2009
15. © Michael Ziem - Nice shot of N167F coming in for landing
16. © Michael Ziem - N167F kicking up dust on a non-hardened runway
17. © Alistair Bridges - N167F in its previous paintscheme of "Detroit Miss". Picture taken at East Fortune, Scotland on July 14th, 2000
18. © Geoff - GJC1 - N167F repainted "Cisco" for the occosion. Picture taken at Duxford during the filming of the movie "Memphis Belle".
19. © Geoff - GJC1 - Again taken at Duxford during the filming of the movie "Memphis Belle".
20. © Michael Ziem - Picture taken at Oppenheim on August 25th, 2007
21. ©
22. © Michael Vaeremans - Picture taken in flight over Belgium on August 10th, 2009
23. © Diezel

Pictures of the original "Old Crow "

If you have any high-quality photographs of N167F you would like to share on this website, please contact us.

Usefull links

Clarence E. "Bud" Anderson