1/32 Trumpeter P-47D as P-47D-1 42-7924 flown by Frank D. Gallion, lost November 3rd, 1943 DECALS ON

[elger]

Up next: Trumpeter's big 1/32 scale P-47D as P-47D-1 42-7924 flown by Frank D. Gallion

 

 

In the beginning of 1995 there were some articles in Dutch newspapers about the recovery of a P-47 wreck from the IJsselmeer

 

 

Following that recovery, in the summer of 1995 there was an exhibition entitled "If something were to go wrong" of various aircraft wrecks including the P-47 recovered earlier that year. The aircraft had been flown by 29-year old Frank D. Gallion from Millersburg, Ohio. The aircraft had been missing since it was lost on November 3rd, 1943.

 

 

On November 3rd 1943, Frank Gallion had taken off with his squadron from an airbase in Essex, England, to escort formations of B-17s and B-24s on a misson to bomb the harbor facilities at Wilhelmshaven. The allied aircraft flew over the occupied Netherlands. Above the IJsselmeer, the American escort fighters were surprised by a flight of German Messerschmitt 109s attacking them. Gallion's aircraft was one that was shot down.

 

"No chutes seen" was reported by the flight leader Lieutenant Colonel Donald Blakesee - Frank Gallion was Missing in Action for over 50 years until his aircraft (and his remains) were recovered in 1995.

 

[source image: americanairmuseum.com]

Dave Moyer, Frank Gallion's nephew, wrote in 2012: "all I have is memories from my youth…conversations between family members at family get togethers, specially around the holidays of Thanksgiving and Christmas. I do know he had a wife, Phylis, and actually did know her as I was growing up..late 40’s early 50’s. I know that she got a telegram about 2 weeks after Frank went missing, advising her of that situation. Frank was the love of her life. She never remarried. She died in 1990 and I think it so sad that she never knew the complete story. I know that among Frank’s affects were his zippo lighter, what was left of his flight log book, part of his woolen flight jacket, and his dog tags."

 

(from http://aircrewremembered.com/gallion-frank.html)

 

 

[source image: americanairmuseum.com]

 

Gallion was flying this aircraft on November 3rd, 1943: P-47D-1 42-7924 QP-F.

 

 

In fact, 42-7924 was the aircraft that was more regularly flown by Winslow "Mike" Sobanski - an American with a Polish background. Here we see 42-7924 in close up with Sobanski in the cockpit. Sobanski was killed in action himself on D-Day

 

[source image: americanairmuseum.com]

 

Trumpeter's P-47's virtues and vices have been quite well documented. Overall it's a very sound kit and I'm looking forward to putting it together.

 

 

I've already had a great amount of help from this forum figuring out some of the particulars, here:

 

 

Work will start with the cockpit. Updates to follow and any input is always appreciated!

[Jackson Duvalier]

I've an interest in early P-47s so I will be following this.  I also like your approach to modelling specific aircraft with local connections, elger.

 

31 minutes ago, elger said:

 

[source image: americanairmuseum.com]

 

Thought I knew a bit about Thunderbolts but those bloated fuel tanks and their location inboard of the port side wheel bay are a new one on me.  Obvs no wing pylons or centerline station at this early date.  🤔

[elger]

Based on various references and the wonderful input from the forum I've started work on the cockpit. I'm using the kit parts and the Eduard detail set a basis.

 

 

The thing is, this detail set is from Eduard's pre-painted self-adhesive era -which, especially for seatbelts, is the worst of all worlds (photo etch, pre-painted, self-adhesive). While I'm going to be using a fair bit from this set, I dreaded using the seat belts as they came. I couldn't figure out a way to get the paint or the glue off the parts, so I ended up holding them over a lit candle burning everything off. The added benefit I suppose is that I annealed it as well.

 

The Eduard set does correct the rudder pedals to the early type:

 

 

The close up of the aircraft with Sobanski reveals it was equipped with a British mk.II gunsight; I added a resin Barracuda Spitfire gunsight I had in my spares box. (I've since corrected the angle):

 

 

Scratchbuilding the identification lights switch panel with toggle switches from Anyz

 

 

And finally, the cockpit floor and walls with the first round of the Eduard detail parts fitted as well as some other scratch built details. I've removed some of the radio boxes on the right hand side of the cockpit and I'm replacing it with a spare SCR-522 radio box (also from my spares box - this was from a Mosquito).

 

 

Next up some painting and the rest of the Eduard etch, as well as a Yahu instruments panel.

 

Thanks for looking, C&C is always welcome.

[Bedders]

Great start, and an interesting story behind the model too. Anything 4th Fighter Group-related gets my vote. 

 

Justin

[Biggles87]

A great start indeed. I have had one of these for a few years now and keep taking it out of the box and putting it back in again, perhaps your build will inspire me to start it.

I think it is one of Trumpeter's better efforts ( along with the Me262 ), my only complaint is that there are not enough detachable panels to show off more of the internal details like the supercharger.

Looking forward to more .

 

John. 🇺🇦

PS: I think that the Yahu IPs are far superior to the Eduard versions, especially in larger scales, and I have recently discovered the Anyz switches/knobs.

 

 

[Collin]

Enjoy this build...one of Trump's better kits.

 

Cheers

Collin

[TAG]

On 6/18/2022 at 10:07 AM, Jackson Duvalier said:

I've an interest in early P-47s so I will be following this.  I also like your approach to modelling specific aircraft with local connections, elger.

 

 

Thought I knew a bit about Thunderbolts but those bloated fuel tanks and their location inboard of the port side wheel bay are a new one on me.  Obvs no wing pylons or centerline station at this early date.  🤔

Hey, Jackson

 

That is the Ferry Tank, an inelegant, 200-gallon hack of a solution to the lack of range for escort fighters during the earliest days of the USAAF's bombing campaign over Festung Europa. This bulbous bulge was faired into the Jug's fuselage to try and make it less ungainly, but remained essentially a non-starter as it was unpressurized and thus unusable above 23,000 ft. Only P-47C's and the earliest D's were fitted with ferry tanks, as they were quickly abandoned in favor of the pressurized 75- and 108-gallon tanks which could be mounted on the wings or centerline.

 

Ferry tank photos are pretty thin on the ground, so that's a pretty cool snap you posted there, @elger, right click and save, cheers dude!

 

Hope that helped.

 

-Thomaz

 

 

[elger]

22 hours ago, TAG said:

Hey, Jackson

 

That is the Ferry Tank, an inelegant, 200-gallon hack of a solution to the lack of range for escort fighters during the earliest days of the USAAF's bombing campaign over Festung Europa. This bulbous bulge was faired into the Jug's fuselage to try and make it less ungainly, but remained essentially a non-starter as it was unpressurized and thus unusable above 23,000 ft. Only P-47C's and the earliest D's were fitted with ferry tanks, as they were quickly abandoned in favor of the pressurized 75- and 108-gallon tanks which could be mounted on the wings or centerline.

 

Ferry tank photos are pretty thin on the ground, so that's a pretty cool snap you posted there, @elger, right click and save, cheers dude!

 

Hope that helped.

 

-Thomaz

 

 

Glad that the photo was of some interest. Here's the actual URL of the source: https://www.americanairmuseum.com/aircraft/9682

 

 

[elger]

Painting and finishing the seat. As mentioned above I had to repaint the pre-painted PE seatbelts. I also drilled out the holes in the frame.

 

 

I finished them by adding stitch decals from Anyz, followed by a coat of clear flat

 

 

Photos of the other cockpit parts will follow!

[elger]

Cockpit is finished

 

 

And some glamour shots. First up, the Yahu instruments panel with additional switches from Anyz. Rudder pedals are from the Eduard set:

 

 

 

I also added switches and knobs to the left hand side of the cockpit:

 

 

 

 

 

That's all for now - thanks for looking!

[elger]

While I started working on the cockpit I ignored the fuselage - and that slowed me down quite a bit because it required a bit of thinking.

 

 

Infamously, the Trumpeter P-47 comes with the entire turbo unit. The kit must have been conceived with a transparent fuselage originally which was eventually never produced. In any case, as others have noted, you don't need to build that whole turbo unit: the cockpit tub fits onto the rear wing spar, and you only need to build up these parts of the engine ducting.

 

I found the fit of these parts to be quite poor, and I'm glad I didn't have to install the whole unit because I think it would have given me a lot of trouble. There were big sink marks that I filled, and I added some PE from the Eduard set.

 

 

Speaking of Eduard, the centerpiece of the interior set are the panels to cover the rear of the canopy deck. I had more fit issues with these - they seemed to stick out too far forward so I cut off part of the diagonal rear and that made them look better. I also added the canopy rails.

 

 

The colour of these panels is a hugely controversial issue: photographic evidence exists of these panels being a green colour (probably the same as the cockpit tub) as well as olive drab. I went with the latter option. The rails were painted aluminium and then zinc chromate chips were added.

 

 

The leftover interior parts were painted bronze green

 

 

Here all the interior bits have been added to the fuselage:
 

 

and with the fuselage taped together, it's beginning to look like a Thunderbolt

 

 

As always, thanks for looking!

[Biggles87]

I think you’ve made the right decision about the ducting/supercharger, why spend time on something you won’t see, life’s too short.

 

John

 

🇺🇦

[elger]

engine update!

 

I had learned that the magnetos that Trumpeter supplies are not accurate for early Ds. I purchased a resin Quickboost P-47 engine designed for the Hasegawa kit so that I could use its bits and bobs that go on the gear housing. The set also includes the pitch control box for the Curtiss Electric propeller.

 

 

All the parts fitted, and added some wiring and scratch built items:

 

 

Another feature of the D-1 that I really wanted to include were the early type cowl flaps; with this configuration, the lower two flaps extend the same length back as the others. I started by sanding off the kit cowl flaps from the ring - in the photo below you can see the original configuration on the left:

 

 

Next, I simply made some new cowl flaps out of thin styrene sheet cut to size, and glued them on. (I had to repair a little bit of damage on one of the other flaps):

 

 

And dry fitting it to the fuselage:

 

 

As always, thanks for looking!

 

 

[elger]

finished the engine:

 

 

 

First painted with Vallejo Dark Aluminium, then a wash of Mig Ammo's acrylic Starship Filth. Next, the details were painted with Vallejo and AK Third Gen paints, and then everything was given another wash of acrylic Starship Filth, and then everything was covered with Vallejo clear flat. As always, thanks for looking!

[elger]

With the engine finished I'm turning my attention to the wings. I'm replacing the kit's barrels with brass ones from Master. These come with a ridge at the rear which makes it impossible to fit them after the wing is together and an additional problem is that it's difficult to insert the barrels properly into the rear part. I solved these problems by first filing off the ridges on the barrels. I also glued styrene tube with the exact diameter of the barrels onto the rear part of the gun creating a tunnel that will be used to guide the brass barrels exactly into their correct place.

 

 

 

 

Thanks for looking!

[Rod bettencourt]

Really nice work!!

 

Rod

[Russmeister 101]

Cracking progress on the Jug.

 

Pass the popcorn🍿

[elger]

Thanks! I'm still making some progress. A little heads up for anyone interested in building this kit - the elevators and stabilizers won't fit right unless you make a little notch in the mating section on the tailplane like this:

 

[Biggles87]

Thanks for the tip.

Two feet away, in 1/32 that’s  pretty good, mine look better from ten feet.

 

John.  

 🇺🇦

 

[elger]

Finishing the wheel wells. Adding most of the Eduard detail set here:

 

 

Deviating slightly from the build sequence by adding the upper wing halves to the fuselage first. My idea is to paint the interior of the wells first, and then close them up with the lower part.

 

 

Thanks for looking!

[elger]

Wheel wells painted and finished:

 

 

 

And happy to finally have a distinctly Thunderbolt-shaped object on my desk:

 

 

Thanks for looking!

[Cees Broere]

What a great topic.

The recovery of the Thunderbolt was an epic one and I had visited the exhibition at the time.

After that the wreck was reported to be for sale and I tried to obtain it for the museum at Fort Veldhuis.

But the then curator of Soesterberg only wanted it to be out of the country. It ended up in a heap

in a small German museum which later closed.

From another source we got some parts from this aircraft such as the tip of a horizontal stabilizer

and the map case.

Cheers

Cees

[elger]

2 hours ago, Cees Broere said:

What a great topic.

The recovery of the Thunderbolt was an epic one and I had visited the exhibition at the time.

After that the wreck was reported to be for sale and I tried to obtain it for the museum at Fort Veldhuis.

But the then curator of Soesterberg only wanted it to be out of the country. It ended up in a heap

in a small German museum which later closed.

From another source we got some parts from this aircraft such as the tip of a horizontal stabilizer

and the map case.

Cheers

Cees

 

What a strange course of events. Good thing that at least some parts are kept!

[elger]

The fit of the kit is not exactly great - lots of issues with the panels on the wings. Spent quite a bit of time filling and sanding but finally it was ready for paint:

 

 

Starting off with a nice coat of Tamiya primer:

 

 

I'll paint the white recognition markings next, and then the main camouflage. Thanks for looking!

[VT Red Sox Fan]

Elger, what a great build—I don’t have much to add because I learn so much from your work—if I may, 2 quick questions and I apologize if I missed them in this catch up—what brand or mix did you use for Bronze Green and what grey did you use for the crankcase?  Amazing work and thanks for sharing—best, Erwin