Thanks Patrick.
Dont forget to post some photos of Little Chief
Nige

Hi Nige,

As soon as it is ready, I will post some picture of "Little Chief".

Hello there, my name is Tony and I am an Aussie aircraft engineer by profession. I have had a great affection for the P-47 since living in Papua New Guinea in the early Seventies. We had a P-47D Razorback sitting on the side of the local airstrip that we used to play on as kids while waiting for the weekly DC-3 (I kid you not!) to fly in.

The school my father worked at also had quite a few Curtis-Electric four blade props as sign post supports that by the remaining stencilling came off Thunderbolts as well.

Luckily the Razorback was recovered and is being restored to fly in Sydney, Australia several decades later, so at least she is safe and getting better now.

As far as modelling the Jug, I have several 1/48 scale kits, the Monogram razorback (a classic and nicely detailed kit that looks good), the Otaki (which again is a simple but buildable kit) and a mid nineties issue of the Revell 1/32 razorback.
My new addition to the family is the massive Vintage Fighter Series 1/24 scale P-47D kit. Great detail, lots of stores options, four different props to cover all the options, out of the box dropped flaps and the first kit I have bought with the engine cowling actually divided up in the correct four petal arrangement with full internal detail.

Cheers

Tony

Hi Tony and welcome to Aeroscale and especially the P-47 SIG, I'm sure you will feel right at home with us other P-47 fans. You must post some picture of your completed kits

Cheers

Allen

Hi Tony
Welcome to Aeroscale and welcome to my little ( soon to be larger) corner of the hanger
Arent the VFS kits lovely!
I have the P47-M on order, and shouldnt have to wait much longer I hope.
Im looking forward to seeing some of your builds.
The SIG is about to expand and there will be a nice new gallery just waiting to be filled up with Thunderbolts!
Can I ask,with you being a newly registered member, how you found the P-47 SIG?

Is this your old playground?


Nige

http://www.pacificwrecks.com/aircraft/p-47/42-27608/1974/p47-tail.html

This is my baby and that is my brother sitting on the tail. I did see that other P-47 in a holding yard in pieces back in 74 though.

I also have a restored P-47 instrument panel with 90% of the instruments from a Razorback as well.

Cheers

Tony

Oh, and I found the sig doing a google search for P-47...

Hi Tony.
Some kids get all the best toys!
A friend of mine remembers playing in the boneyard at Halesworth when he was a kid. He remembers the planes having pictures on the front and him and his mates smashing things
Hes more than redeemed himself since as he is one of the founder members of the Halesworth Memorial Museum and a leading researcher into the 56th FG.
Its good to see that the little P-47 thread I started almost a year ago is bringing Thunderbolt "nuts" together from around the world.
42-27608 looks in a sorry state in the 1974 photo, but Ive seen photos of them flown home with a lot worse damage than that

After loosing the UK's only airworthy Thunderbolt to American owners a few years ago,,( all together now........boooo boooo ) the Fighter Collections P-47G has now returned and should be gracing the skies soon.
Nige

Hi Nige,
Re the photo of the P47 Razorback taken in 1991
That aircraft was in, Auckland New Zealand, at the Museum of Transport & Technology*.
I believe that particular aircraft was involved a legal dispute between the museum and the probable owner (don't quote me).
Furthermore I also believe she was crated up one night and left our shores.
I'll try to verify for you the history of the aircraft I know someone who does some work at MOTAT*
I sure he knows someone, who knows someone who maybe able to shed some light on its whereabouts.

Chris

It is currently being restored to fly at HARS in Sydney along with the one from Popondetta I linked through to. Have a look at Pacific Wrecks to find the history, more pictures and current location of the aircraft that Nige pictured, indeed that picture is from there I believe?

Cheers

Tony

The photo I posted is from the Warbirds Research Group site. which lists all the airframes either in storage,in museums,under restoration etc etc.
Pacific Wrecks is a great site as well and full of excellent P-47 content.
Its a shame that in the UK we only have 2 static exhibition Bubbletops and a Razorback under restoration.
In fact, now the Razorback has returned to Duxford its about time for another visit when I get chance.
Nige

Not the best quality photo Im afraid, but I wanted to share this piece of 56th FG history I liberated from Halesworth during the recent breaking up of the perimeter track. I also have a "1:72" scale size piece.

The plan is to mount these pieces of perimeter track on a base of their own with a small plaque describing where they came from.
Nige

Nice way to preserve a small piece of history I wish I had done the same when they pulled up the runway at RAF Binbrook

Allen

My first visit to this part of the forum as I'm not a P-47 builder normally, and I must say that theres lots of info in here.
My P-47 building changed the other week when I picked up an old 'Revell UK' 1/144 P-47D bubble top no fin fillet (lots of filler needed).
My question for those out there is the kit comes with two marking options but no colour guide for either, so can any one help with either CV-X or HV-H?

Ciao
Luciano

Hi Lucky.
Your baby 'bolt is more than welcome.
HV-H would be a 61st FS 56FG T'bolt. However, there were many HV-H's. I know of at least 5 P-47D's coded HV-H. A couple of these are known to have carried noseart. do you have a serial number at all?
CV-X would be another 8th USAAF T'bolt. This code applies to the 368th FS 359th FG. Again, multiple examples of the squadron code so if you have a little more detail I'll be able to give you a more complete answer and perhaps even a photo.
All the best
Nige

That kit is definitely from the dark ages of 1/144 modelling, I am pretty sure I built it from the old Crown release. If I remember rightly the Revell UK release may have even kept the same decal sheet, so there was little else that stars and squadron codes provided.

I am sure in my stacks of old magazines I have an article in Scale Models International of available (at the time) P-47 kits. Even though quite a few years old now it would make a good resource for the SIG, I will try and dig it out as it was a comprehensive lineage of some of the older P-47 kits, such as the Crown/Revell and Hawk/Testors/Italerei examples.

Though most all older kits have been comprehensively superceded nowdays, the older stuff shows up in peoples stashes and at swap meets, so the info often becomes relevant so is worth knowing.

Cheers

Tony

Good information Tony, thanks for posting.
A list of P-47 kits is something I have wanted to do for a while now, but Ive never managed to find enough time to get stuck into it.
That article would make an excellent starting point.
I hope you can find it!
Nige

Thanks Nige and Tony. Tony I believe you are right it is a golden oldie of possible Crown vintage.

Nige, Tony is quite right in that there is only codes and star/bars no nose art or serials, so any with no nose art would be suitable.

Ciao
Luciano

Hi Lucky.
Very quick reply Im afraid as Im just dashing out of a hotel into work
CV-X. Checking Little Friends for pictures I havent been able to locate Bubbletop. By the "Bubbletop" era the 359th FG had converted to Mustangs. Green nose band and red rudder would be your standard markings for that squadron/group though.
As for the 56th FG example HV-H.
Red cowling band and red rudder.
You could do a NMF, olive drab anti glare panel and black bands around the horizontal stabilisers and rudder for both aircraft.
For HV-H you could also use a grey/green camouflage as commonly seen with Donovan Smiths aircraft, or a break up pattern similar to Gabby Gabreskis aircraft.
I'll try and post a photo or two soon. ( unless anybody beats me to it )
Nige

Thanks Nige, I'll await a photo but must admit to liking the idea of the camo although a colourful NMF would be nice.

Ciao
Luciano

Well, despite having just bought the VFS 1/24 scale Jug I must admit that 1/48 is my preferred scale and up until a few days ago I had only owned the Otaki/Arii, Hawk/Testors and Revell/Monogram versions but seeing all the good things written about the Tamiya (and to a lesser extent Hasegawa) kits made me interested enough to go out and buy examples of both in their repsective Razorback versions.

I have allways rated the Monogram kit quite highly amongst the "old-gen" examples especially as to me it looked right as a Thunderbolt. I picked a Hasegawa version first (the Pied Piper HSG09541) and was immediately struck by how nice it looked in the box. I tried cutting the fuselage and engine cowls from the sprues for a bit of test fitting and ran into a down side, how brittle and splintery the plastic used is, making it hard to cleanly cut the parts (I allways use a sharp, new craft knife at a minimum to cut parts) and adding to any cleanup.....That and the infamous sink marks on the cowling are well and truly present.

I next bought the Tamiya Razorback after a little searching. Tamiya availablity can be a little spotty here in South Australia if you are after a specific kit. An example being that my closest hobby shop has 6 1/48 scale two seat Do-335's that have been sitting on the shelves for years but no P-47's.
Straight in the box the Tamiya kit looks better with more options and an overall better molded look. The extra props alone will definitely find homes on some of my "old-gen" kits.

None of this will be new information to anyone here, but despite some of these newer kits having been around for year now it is nice to look at them from a new perspective.

Cheers

Tony

I may not get chance to get online tomorrow, the 27th, so Im going to take this opportunity to wish my little corner of the hanger a very happy first birthday.

Happy Birthday P-47 Special Interest Group

On a slightly more serious note, thankyou to everyone who has contributed to the SIG over the last 12 months and made it the success it is.
It's progressed beyond anything I expected and I'm hoping to be able to announce an exciting new development very soon.
Watch this space P-47 fans!
Nige

Wow has it really been a year

Well happy birthday P-47 SIG to celebrate two sheets of P-47 Decals arrived today (pictures to follow) and i'm planning a trip down to the LHS to hopefully get a Razorback tomorrow.

Here's to another year

As promised here's a pic of the decals that arrived yesterday



and the trip to the LHS the next town over was quite fruitful. It was a hard decision as they had all three of the 1/48 Tamiya T-bolts but I settled on this as I have a few Razorback decals to use now



Cheers

Allen

..don't think we've seen any 4th FG Tbolts yet on the SIG....what subjects are covered on the sheet and more to the point which are you planning to do....?