1/48 Academy P-47N Thunderbolt

Gallery Article by Jason Foo on Nov 17 2009

 

This Academy kit was probably the cheapest 48th scale P-47 that I could find in Australia which was surprisingly quite detail.  I've enjoyed building my 1/48 Academy A-10 Thunderbolt II (also in ARC gallery) so much that I've decided to build its WW2 predecessor as well.  Like most of my models, it has been built right out of the box with no aftermarket parts.

The radial engine is quite nice but I added extra fuel lines for each of the piston, made out of thin copper wire and then super glued on. The cockpit is OK but some sections are inaccurate.  I had to add extra piping and cables on the side walls to represent the real thing as much as I could. The gun sight supplied by the kit is ridiculous and does not even half resemble a round glass-piece.  I had to cut out a piece of transparent plastic as round as possible for the gun sight but it turned out alright.  

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Sadly, I cracked the front canopy in three places during construction and it was beyond repair therefore had to custom build one myself.  It’s quite obvious that the front canopy is a bit out of whack but I guess that will just have to do, considering that it was made out of a coke bottle.  Extra seat belts made out of plastic strips were also added on the bucket seats.

The kit also comes with several weapons and fuel tanks combo which is a nice option except that you had to file off the rocket pylons if you prefer the rocket launchers instead which was what I opted for.  I have also added brake lines for the landing gears to make it look more complete and dry-brushed the tyres with a sandy colour emphasizing the detailed thread pattern.

I got carried away with trying to make this bird as unique as possible by actually cutting out the wing flaps and extending it out for displaying purposes.  This was definitely the dumbest idea because the flap control rods and linkages had to be exposed on the under wing.  After about 50,000 attempts to construct these parts out of plastic sprues, I gave up with just a rough representation of the linkages which is quite lame if you look closely.

Overall, this budget model is not a bad kit (if you don't crack the canopy and saw parts off for fun!) with well-defined panel lines and the parts fit nicely together.  Other pluses include the option to have the bubble canopy opened or closed and the exposed gun bay on the wings adds the extra touch.

Jason Foo

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Photos and text © by Jason Foo