P-47D Thunderbolt

by Randy Colvin

P-47D Thunderbolt

Hasegawa's 1/48 scale P-47D Thunderbolt is available online from Squadron.com

This is Hasegawa’s 1/48 scale P-47D Thunderbolt that I built a few years ago while stationed in Germany.

About the only modification I did was the addition of a Hamilton Standard prop from a Minicraft F4U-4 kit instead of using the Curtiss Electric prop that was supplied with the kit.

I wanted to do “Gabby” Gabraski’s P-47D s/n 42-26418 that I think was the P-47 he was flying when he struck his prop on the ground during a strafing attack and crashed becoming a prisoner of war in 1944.

The markings came from the AeroMaster “Top Guns” set which I think was the their first “series” set of decals that they released some years ago. The ID letters HV*A on the decal sheet looked a little to wide for me after looking at photos in several different books and so I took a chance with an old set of Monogram decals from their P-47 kit from around 1974 and they went on very well. The serial number is from the same set, all others are from the AeroMaster set. The victory markings are a little off register and I didn’t notice it until after I started sliding the decal from the paper as the paper was white and it was hard to tell until it was too late.

The Invasion stripes were masked and painted and that was probably the most complicated part of the finish as the fuselage stripes were white outlined in black. I replaced the wing guns with drilled out styrene rod and used a set of Waldron placards in the cockpit. As much as a Corsair nut as I am, the P-47 is also one of my favorite aircraft. I have several more P-47 kits to do including a few Academy kits.

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Model, Images and Article Copyright © 2002 by Randy Colvin
Page Created 25 January 2002
Last updated 04 June 2007

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