1/48 Tamiya P-47D-11 Thunderbolt 

by Darrell Thompson

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This is Tamiya's 1/48 scale P-47 built as a P-47D-11-RE  . I improved the already very good cockpit by adding a few items made from plastic rod, card and electrical wire. The seat was replaced with the very nice Ultracast one. One thing I didn't improve in the cockpit is the fact that the landing gear and flap control module sticks out too far. It might seem a bit 'rivet counter' of me to notice this but Tamiya noticed this and in the Bubbletop and 1/72 scale Thunderbolt's they got it right, so if you've got a Tamiya P-47M in the stash use the spare left-hand sidewall from this for a more accurate Razorback cockpit.

The engine also received some electrical wire to simulate the ignition harness, the pressure and scavenge oil lines to the front accessory case were also made of wire. The Pratt & Whitney eagle logo on the accessory case was hand painted.

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The exhaust outlet surround is a bit flat on the Razorback kit, so I improved this using some sandpaper to reshape it (Tamiya improved this on the Bubbletop and 1/72 scale kits). The undercarriage legs had brake lines added from electrical wire and the wheels are Ultracast resin items.

The aircraft is painted with Humbrol enamels, the demarcation line between the Olive Drab and Neutral Gray being achieved with rolled up Blue-tak as were the 'painted out' ID bands on the tail. Post shading was carried out with dark brown and black pastels and the paint chipping was added with a silver pencil.

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The decals are from the Sky Models Part 1 sheet and depict Captain Michael Quirk's aircraft from the 62nd FS, 56th FG based at Halesworth in February 1944. The national insignias came from SuperScale's P-47 insignia sheet, note that this aircraft had a large (I've gone for 55 inch) insignia under the left wing with the standard 40 inch under the right wing. The stencils came from the kit sheet.

Darrell (Tbolt in the forums) 

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Photos and text © by Darrell Thompson