Certainly has the stocky and basic appearence of a Gemini leg.
F-86 leg looks longer and ‘busier’.

Impressive work Ian!:)

They were involved with Vampire development and production of those and Mosquitos, but equally could it not be from an Oxford? The type was a regular visitor to most RAF airfields in its communications and Radio/Nav Aids support roles

I would say that is the closest rendition of ’42’ so far, but personally suspect the cheatline and spinner to be in a gold colour. I agree with you that it doesn’t have the right characteristics for silver in the b&w images, but it does seem to have a mettalic finish to it.

It seems that it went,

Late 1946 on, Grey with large red lettering until June/July 1949.
June/July 1949 to 1955, Dark Blue with yellow / gold (IMO) cheatline, spinner, and smaller lettering. Elmdon races in July ’49 with red band and ’82’, Wolverhampton ’50 races with light colour band and ’42’.
August 1955, returned to authentic military markings by Vickers.

G-AISU by David Whitworth, on Flickr

This is one of those wonderful images posted up by David Whitworth.

Maybe worth trying to contact the family of Grp Cpt Allen Henry Wheeler?
He owned ‘SU for almost 9 years from 1946 so would have been responsible for the colour changes, I would imagine that if you owned such a steed you would be inclined to well record the details of it.
Vickers brought it in mid ’55, and it was returned to a service scheme in August ’55. Vickers historic info is held with BAE archives at Farnborough, they really are worth a try and are very helpful.

For the air race details it’s really worth seeking out a copy of ‘The Aeroplane’ that was issued in the preceding week to a given race, as they usually ran a full table of entrants with band colours and numbers given.

Just my two penneth, but I always thought that this aircraft was a dark sea grey all over with gold band & spinner. Interpretating B&W images to try and work out colours is a hiding to nothing anyway, but the overall scheme appears a mid shade in the pics I’ve seen, compared with the black details in the tyres, props, exhausts etc.

Unsure if this will help, but interesting reading anyway, http://forum.keypublishing.com/showthread.php?t=103005

I’m having big ISP and forum loading probs at the mo, so struggling to post anything, but for the 1949 Elmdon races G-AISU wore a red tail band and number 82. Unfortunately the airframe colour isn’t noted, pilot was Gr Cpt A.H.Wheeler who was flying in the Kemsley Challenge Trophy race. G-AIDN in the same group wore an orange band.
Different colour bands were dictated by the Air Race organisers, with each aircraft within the eight groups having to use a different colour.
Doubt it helps much.

Not sure if you are modelling an actual V bomber home base, dispersed base or an imaginery one of either?
With dispersed airfields there tended to be one large ASP (Aircraft Servicing Platform) for two or four aircraft, either one large pan or made up of existing dispersals, and two ORP (Operational Readiness Platforms) which were placed right at the entry point to the runway.
Only the main runway would have the ORP entry points and only at the predominant runway direction end.
Using St Mawgan as an example, the main runway was the 9,000×300 31-13 rw, and 31 was the dominant runway direction in use (usually this is given away by landing and nav aids etc). An ORP was sighted at the 31 threshold, and another one just further down at a seperated entry point from the taxiway and V dispersal, both of these were square concrete platforms built into the taxiways. The main dispersal was four of the existing spectacle loops modified with comms, rest and readiness buildings and all the kit needed for handling V Bombers.
An HTP Emergency Disposal Pit adjoins one of the ORPs at Mawgan, and I believe this was standard.
If modelling an imaginery base I would transpose relevant bits from say Elvington, which is still a superb example of a V dispersed airfield, a scan of a satellite image shows exactly what I mean and the distinctive ORPs show up really well. Same goes for other airfields such as Mawgan, Machrihanish, & Bedford etc.

Readiness for V bombers on parking areas were,

RS15, were the aircraft and crew had to be capable of taking off in 15 minutes. The crew could be in their rest room partly in flying suits, or further away with dedicated vehicle ready to go. This readiness could be held anywhere between a few hours, or on at least one excercise up to 30 days. The crews operated in 24hr shifts.

The next level was readiness on the ORPs and were,

RS05, the aircraft on the ORP with all electrical power on, and APU running. The crews were all fully suited and sat in their positions. The aircraft was to scramble within 5 minutes, and this readiness could be held for up to 5 hours. All four engines were capable of single point start up, ie not wasting time on seperate engines and systems to start and come on stream.

RS02 would have all engines running, and crews ready to go, all external supplies were dissconnected, this readiness would get the aircraft airborne in 2 minutes and would only be held for very short periods of time.

Class 1 airfields, All capable of accommodating four V bombers at readiness.
Coningsby
Cottesmore
Finningley
Gaydon
Honington
Marham
Scampton
Waddington
Wittering
Wyton

Dispersed airfields, capable of supporting 2, or 4 aircraft
RAF Aldergrove
RAF Ballykelly
RAE Bedford
RAF Boscombe Down
RAF Brawdy
Bruntingthorpe
RAF Burtonwood
RAF Coltishall
RAF Cranwell
RAF Elvington
Filton
RAF Kemble
RAF Kinloss
RAF Leconfield
RAF Leeming
RAF Leuchars
RAE Llanbedr
RAF Lossiemouth
RAF Lyneham
RAF Machrihanish
RAF Manston
RAF Middleton St. George
Pershore
RAF St. Mawgan
Prestwick
RAF Shawbury
Stansted
Tarrant Rushton
RAF Valley
RAF Wattisham
RNAS Yeovilton

Unsure if any RAF airfields abroad had ORPs, but guessing that the likes of Luqa did.
I can’t tie down exact dates but it seemed that this readiness system ran from around 1959 to 1969.

As far as markings and lights, I think they were just standard in use at the time for the airfield, being similar to what has been used until recent times.
For the detail I can really recommend asking over at the Airfield Information Exchange.

Unfortunately my home internet is down so I can’t post up drawings etc at the mo!