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Model
Tech
P-47D Thunderbolt
by
Jim Onorato
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A great-looking,
great-flying warbird
Republic Aviation’s P-47 Thunderbolt, affectionately
nicknamed the “Jug,” was one of the largest, fastest, most
rugged and most heavily armed fighters of WW II. The
fighter/bomber had eight 50-caliber machine guns plus rockets
and bombs. It flew bomber escort missions over Europe and the
jungles of Burma, and it escorted B-29s to Japan. Now, Model
Tech has come up with a 1/7-scale reproduction of the big and
beautiful P-47D.
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| The
contents of the kit. Note that the fiberglass cowl and
belly pan are painted, and the tail feathers are
balsa-sheeted foam. The kit even includes a
polished-aluminum prop hub. |
What’s in the box?
When I opened the box, I first noticed how great the covering
looked; it was smooth and tight. If yours has wrinkles in the
covering, use an iron set to medium heat to smooth them out
(at this heat, it won’t melt the covering). As I inspected
the various components, I could see that the kit was of high
quality and that the overall appearance and quality of
workmanship was topnotch.
The P-47D features a fully sheeted fuselage that’s made of
balsa and lite-ply and has a true-to-scale, built-up
elliptical wing. The foam-core, airfoil-shaped tail feathers
are also balsa sheeted. The kit includes a beautiful
factory-painted fiberglass cowl, a fiberglass belly pan, an
engine mount, fixed and retractable landing gear, wheels, a
fuel tank, clear molded canopy, plastic wing fairings,
machine-gun fairings and wheel-well cups plus all the
necessary hardware and decals. You need to supply a 4- or
5-channel radio, an engine, a propeller and fuel tubing. The
kit even includes a beautifully polished aluminum spinner hub
that’s custom made for this aircraft.
The 68-page instruction book includes more than 110 photos and
drawings to guide you through assembly. The instructions are
very well written and contain a list of the kit’s contents
as well as a list of the additional items, tools and supplies
needed to complete assembly; nothing was overlooked.
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| Above: no
lack of room here! The servo tray is die-cut and
accommodates standard servos. Note the clever
dual-pushrod hookups. A single rod is attached to a
nylon plate; the pushrods are then screwed to the
plate. Simple and easy! |
Assembly
Wing. After reading the instructions, I realized that the
assembly sequence was not critical, so I decided to deviate
from the instructions somewhat and to assemble the wing first.
A plywood dihedral brace that slides into pockets in the wing
panels is used to join them. One of the panels has a hardwood
dowel in the root rib that mates with a hole in the opposite
root rib for perfect alignment—a nice touch! After making
sure that everything fit correctly, I glued the panels
together with 30-minute epoxy.
The provided CA hinges for the control surfaces are only 3/4
inch square. I didn’t think this provided a sufficiently
large gluing surface, so I replaced the hinges with larger
3/4x1-inch hinges; it’s better to be safe than sorry, and
this model is too beautiful to risk damaging it in flight. I
installed a Cirrus CS-60 aileron servo in each wing panel;
they’re attached to hardwood blocks that are epoxied to the
servo hatches. I hooked up the servos to the ailerons with the
provided hardware. Two 12-inch servo extensions are needed to
extend the servo leads to the center of the wing. Paper tubes
installed in the wing make this a simple task.
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Left:
for a little additional realism, the kit includes
plastic gun ports that are to be glued onto the
wing’s leading edge.
Right: the rudder and tailwheel are controlled by two
pushrods that are attached to the same servo. The
elevators also use two pushrods; I assembled them
using the supplied hardware. |
The retracts are installed next. The mounting rails are
already installed, and the cutouts for the wheels and struts
have been made for you. I had only to remove the covering from
the cutouts, bend the pushrods to shape and bolt the retracts
into place. The instructions include a photo that shows how to
bend the pushrods to get the proper clearance for smooth
operation—another nice touch. To operate the retracts, I
used a Cirrus CS-100 retract servo. For modelers who have
4-channel radios, the kit includes hardware for fixed landing
gear and a rather clever mounting block that you bolt right
onto the retract mounting rails. With the installation of the
molded-plastic wheel wells and the landing-gear covers, the
wing is complete.
Fuselage. Instead of using the provided 5mm machine
screws, I attached the wing to the fuselage with 1/4-20 nylon
bolts threaded into the plywood wing-mounting block. I did
this because I didn’t have a 5mm tap, and I thought the
larger nylon bolts would be stronger. I removed the covering
from the underside of the wing where the fiberglass belly pan
is located and then epoxied it into place.
I glued on the fin and stabilizer with 30-minute epoxy and
then hinged the rudder and elevators. As with the ailerons, I
used the longer CA hinges instead of the shorter ones
provided. The rudder is covered in red and white stripes with
a black vertical stripe at the hinge line. I removed the black
stripe and replaced it with an Insignia Blue one. The
tailwheel on the P-47D is in a scale location and is
controlled by a separate pushrod from the rudder servo. The
tailwheel assembly is attached by screwing four capscrews into
blind nuts that are already installed in a rear former. A
removable hatch allows easy access.
I installed the die-cut servo tray on the support rails inside
the fuselage and positioned the two closest servo cutouts
toward the left side of the fuselage. I then installed three
Cirrus CS-60 servos and assembled the pushrods (two for the
elevators and two for the rudder/tailwheel) using the provided
hardware.
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