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Republic P-47D Thunderbolt. 1:24


Shar2

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Republic P-47D Thunderbolt
Kinetic 1:24


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The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt is one of the largest and heaviest fighter aircraft in history to be powered by a single piston engine. It was built from 1941–1945, and was heavily armed with eight .50-caliber machine guns, four per wing. When fully loaded, the P-47 weighed up to eight tons, and in the fighter-bomber ground-attack roles could carry five-inch rockets or a significant bomb load of 2,500 pounds; it could carry more than half the payload of the B-17 bomber on long-range missions (although the B-17 had a far greater range). The P-47 was designed around the powerful Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp engine—the same engine used by two very successful U.S. Navy fighters, the Grumman F6F Hellcat and Vought F4U Corsair, the latter of which was the first to fly with Double Wasp power in late May 1940—and was to be very effective as a short-to-medium range escort fighter in high-altitude air-to-air combat. When deployed as a fighter-bomber with its usual "double quartet" of heavy-calibre M2 Browning machine guns, it proved especially adept at ground attack in both the World War II European and Pacific Theatres.

The P-47 was one of the main United States Army Air Forces (USAAF) fighters of World War II, and served with other Allied air forces, notably those of France, Britain, and Russia. Mexican and Brazilian squadrons fighting alongside the U.S. were equipped with the P-47. The armoured cockpit was roomy inside, comfortable for the pilot, and offered good visibility. A modern-day U.S. ground-attack aircraft, the Fairchild Republic A-10 Thunderbolt II, takes its name from the P-47.

Throughout its career the Thunderbolt was almost continually updated and refined, leading to the P-47D, (the subject of this review), which was the most produced version with 12,602 built. The "D" model actually consisted of a series of evolving production blocks, the last of which were visibly different from the first. The first P-47Ds were actually the same as P-47Cs. Republic could not produce Thunderbolts fast enough at its Farmingdale plant on Long Island, so a new plant was built at Evansville, Indiana. The Evansville plant built a total of 110 P-47Ds, which were completely identical to P-47C-2s. Farmingdale aircraft were identified by the "-RE" suffix after the block number, while Evansville aircraft were given the "-RA" suffix. The P-47D-1 through P-47D-6, the P-47D-10, and the P-47D-11 successively incorporated changes such as the addition of more engine cooling flaps around the back of the cowl to reduce the engine overheating problems that had been seen in the field. Engines and engine subsystems saw refinement, as did the fuel, oil and hydraulic systems. Additional armour protection was also added for the pilot.

The P-47D-15 was produced in response to requests by combat units for increased range. Underwing "wet" (equipped with fuel plumbing) bomb racks were introduced to allow a jettisonable drop tank pressurized by vented exhaust air to be carried under each wing, in addition to the belly tank. Seven different auxiliary tanks were fitted to the Thunderbolt during its career. The tanks made of plastic-impregnated (laminated) paper could not store fuel for an extended period of time, but they worked quite well for the time it took to fly a single mission. These tanks were cheaper, lighter, and were useless to the enemy if recovered after being dropped—not only did they break apart, but they did not provide the enemy with any reusable materials that could be scavenged for their own war effort. With the increased fuel capacity, the P-47 was now able to perform escort missions deep into enemy territory. A drawback to their use was that fighters could not land with the tanks in place because of the hazard of rupture and explosion. Fighters recalled from a mission or that did not jettison their paper tanks for some reason were required to drop them into a designated "dump" area at their respective fields, resulting in substantial losses of aviation fuel.

The P-47D-16, D-20, D-22 and D-23 were similar to the P-47D-15 with minor improvements in the fuel system, engine subsystems, a jettisonable canopy, and a bulletproof windshield. Beginning with the block 22 aircraft, the original narrow-chorded Curtiss propeller was replaced by propellers with larger blades, the Evansville plant switching to a new Curtiss propeller with a diameter of 13 ft. (3.96 m) and the Long Island plant using a Hamilton Standard propeller with a diameter of 13 ft. 2 in (4.01 m). With the bigger propellers having barely 6 in (152 mm) of ground clearance, Thunderbolt pilots had to learn to be careful on take-offs to keep the tail down until they obtained adequate ground clearance, and on landings to flare the aircraft properly. Failure to do so damaged both the propeller and the runway. A modification to the main gear legs was installed to extend the legs via an electric motor (un-extending before retraction) to accommodate the larger propeller diameter.

The Model
Kinetics new kit of the P-47D is an update of their 2014 release, with the razorback fuselage replacing the cut down, bubble canopied example, which in turn was originally released by Vintage Fighter Series. The kit comes in a pretty standard sized box, only, very, very deep. The boxart shows a P-47 just leaving the runway on a mission, inside the box is pretty much packed full to the gunwhales with styrene. In total there are twenty four sprues of mid grey styrene, with the wings and fuselage halves separate, there are two sprues of clear styrene, two rubber tyres and a large decal sheet. The parts are beautifully moulded, with no sign of flash or other major imperfections, although there are some flow marks on the wings, which will easily be covered by primer and paint. Whilst the main parts are large, the detail is well reproduced with recessed and raised detail where appropriate. The kit doesn’t look particularly complicated, although the instructions parts placement indications could be better, and whilst it is well detailed it does appear to have some scope for the modeller to add even more, particularly on the engine and in the cockpit.

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Talking of the cockpit, that’s exactly where the build begins, nothing out of the ordinary there I here you say. The cockpit consists of the floor, front bulkhead, rear bulkhead, three piece seat, joystick, beautifully detailed sidewalls, with separate throttle quadrant, and instrument panel, which is fitted with separate rudder pedals and gunsight. The engine is built up form two banks of cylinders, each moulded as one piece. Each bank is fitted with their respective push rods, whilst the front bank is fitted with the cowl mounting ring. The exhaust manifold is assembled, with each of the exhaust pipes being separate parts and fitted to the engine bulkhead. The gearbox cover comes in three parts and is detailed with separate magnetos before being fitted to the front cylinder bank. The firewall is then detailed with the five piece oil cooler section to the front and the two piece channel to the rear. The engine is then fitted to the bulkhead along with the two oil cooler ducts. The area between the engine bulkhead and the firewall is filled with pipework, oil tanks the turbo-supercharger, and engine mounting stays to which the engine assembly is attached.

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The cockpit assembly, wing spars and turbo-supercharger outlet are glued to one half of the fuselage before it can be closed up. The engine assembly, with cowling front now attached is then fitted to the front of the fuselage. The rest of the cowling can then be attached, of left off as per the modellers wishes. If attached, the clear cowling sides can be left unpainted if desired. The horizontal tailplanes are now glued into place, followed by the two gills on the mid fuselage sides, either in the open or closed positions. The tail wheel is made up from eight parts and fitted to the rear fuselage, along with the tail wheel bay doors. The fuselage mounted, five piece flattened drop tank is fitted into position, as are the inner main wheel bay doors and supercharger outlet duct.

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Each wing consist of upper and lower halves, with separate ailerons, flaps and navigation lights. Before gluing the wing halves together, the quad 50 cal gun bays are assembled from seventeen and fitted to the lower wing and any holes required, to be opened up. Each gun bay comes with a separate cover which can be left off if required. Only the port side gun bays is further enhanced with the ammunition belt bay, also with separate, poseable covers. Each of the completed wings are then glued to the fuselage. The underwing stores options include:-

• 108 U.S. gallon (409 l) drop tank
• 110 U.S. gallon drop tank
• 500lb GP Bomb
• Triple Bazooka tube launchers
Each with their respective pylons and fittings.

Each of the main undercarriage assemblies are built up from seven parts, with separate scissor link, inner hub, and outer bay doors. The relevant stores and undercarriage are glued to their respective positions. The flaps can be posed retracted or extended, with the relevant parts required to show off the fully extended flaps. The kit is finished off with the fitting of the two leading edge gun panels, pitot probe and a choice of four different propellers depending on the type you are building.

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Decals
The decal sheet is suitably large, as it should be given the scale, yet there are only two schemes provided, both in olive drab over neutral grey, although one has an off white tailplane. The decals are well printed and really quite vibrant, given the subjects provided. The carrier fill is quite thin, so care should be taken when manoeuvring the decals into position.

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Conclusion
Another one of my favourite aircraft, mainly as it’s one heck of a brute and goes against grain of the dainty fighters of the period. This kit will build into one large model, yet, whilst the size will be quite impressive the parts count isn’t that great. This means that even a fairly novice modeller could have a huge P-47 in their collection. That said, it is quite expensive for what you get, (yes, I know the moulds will be large and the company will need to get their money back on the investment), but it just seems to lack that je ne sais quoi detail one would expect. It’s still a great looking kit and I can quite happily recommend it, as it will give hours of fun, especially with the detail painting, although, if you don’t own an airbrush, you may need a large brush for the exterior paint job.




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Review sample courtesy of luckylogo.gif

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Dude... you'd need a roller to paint that thing without an airbrush.

Thanks for the review... this looks quite cool. I have a definite itch for the Jug and this could happily scratch it

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Having built the VFS series bubbletop which this has evolved from, I'm very much looking forward to building this, and also seeing if some of the problems I encountered with its "parent" have been addressed by Kinetic

Edited by lampie
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Self-evidently, but it seems to be that if Airfix or Kinetic can put in the vastly greater investment required for tooling a whole kit, then at least one of the decal folk ought to be able to scale up their existing digital artwork and bung it off to the printer.

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