The most numerous of P-47 variants, the P-47D, is the subject of Kinetic’s sizable 1/24 scale Thunderbolt (20" wingspan).
In the box are eight sprues of light gray plastic and a decal sheet with two sets of markings: one for the 405th Fighter Group based at Saint-Dizier, France, 1944; the other for 350th Fighter Group, Pisa, Italy, 1945. (I chose the former.) The decals include stencils, but there are no instructions on where to put them. I had an extra 1/48 scale Aeromaster data sheet to go by, so I managed to use most of them.
You get two types of drop tanks, the long-range and the impregnated-paper type, along with two 500-pound bombs and two multitube rocket launchers.
In Step 1, the cockpit goes together alright. But there are no seat belts. The kit supplies three types of gunsights but no indication of exactly where they’re mounted — just arrows pointing to a notch in the instrument panel. Check your references.
Step 2 is the assembly of the engine: For whatever reason, some of the parts didn’t line up; I don’t really know why everything is keyed. The cowl rings don’t fit square in the cowling; the fit seems a half cylinder off. Same with the gear reduction housing; when everything is mounted, it’s a little crooked. I cut off the key on the back of the gear housing and rotated it until it looked straight.
You don’t need any of the duct work described in Step 2, Part B, or any of the engine accessory compartment pieces in Step 3, Part D — you won’t see any of it. The intercooler and oil-cooler intakes, parts 118 and 146, don’t come far enough forward in the cowling. They should sit closer to the cowling lip.
In Step 4, the fuselage halves and engine assembly with bulkhead (Part 111) all come together. The cowl panels, once installed, don’t fit very well. All the seams need filling, sanding, and rescribing. Leave the gear-reduction housing off until the panels are fixed. This way, you can better align the housing with the rest of the cowling so it at least looks square.
The turtle deck (parts 3 and 4) is installed in Step 5, along with the stabilizers and rudder. Nothing fit very well. I had to splice in .020" styrene sheet to fill a gap on the front surface where it meets the fuselage. The whole assembly needs extensive filing and sanding to get it close, then filling, sanding, and rescribing after. When that’s done, you can install the stabilizers and rudder.
Now comes the fun part: Steps 6 and 7 deal with the wings and related components. First off, be advised that the right and left wing assemblies are transposed in the instructions.
The gun bay and ammo tray in the left wing don’t have positive locators; the tolerances are really loose. Also, they don’t seem to line up with openings in the top wing. The gun bodies have a flimsy mounting point, just a little pin — not stable at all. If things aren’t lined up properly, it throws everything off, from the ammo feed belts to the ammo tray to the gun bodies and the barrels, which don’t align.
I suggest you dry-fit everything, and I mean everything, before gluing — but I’m not sure even that will help. The dimensions from one part to the next just don’t seem right.
Then there are the landing flaps: First thing, if you position them down, is to file down the portion of the flap linkages that slides into the wing slots. Once these are sized and fitted, make sure they’ll slide into position easily (they are oversized). Assemble the flaps and appropriate linkage; work quickly so you can temporarily slide the assemblies into the wings and make any adjustments before the glue sets. That’s the best way to get proper alignment. I wish that’s how I had done it.
The main landing gear and gear doors went together alright. The tires and hubs take a little work: The tires are stiff, and the hubs have monstrous tabs that the tires are suppose to slide over. I had to use a small screwdriver to pry the tires over the hubs, like mounting a tire at an auto center. But the big problem comes when you get to installing the strut assembly in the gear bay. There are no real contact points. The “female” area in the bay is nowhere near big or deep enough to make solid contact. Plus, the gear is very noticeably toed-in, necessitating a lot of filing and grinding just to get things close.
I super glued these assemblies in place and, once that dried, coated the whole thing with more super glue and hit it with accelerator.
The instructions mount the wings in the last step. But you should install them way before that. There’s a pin on the fuselage wing root that’s supposed to line up with a locator hole in the wing. Guess what? It doesn’t. Nip off the pins to get a better wing-to-fuselage join.
Three types of props are given: a Hamilton Standard, a symmetrical Curtis Electric, and an asymmetrical paddle-blade prop.
Painting a natural finish was a little challenging because of the plastic’s grainy surface. However, a good gloss base works well enough, and the Alclad II paint did pretty well. The decals went on without a hitch.
It took me somewhere between 55 and 60 hours to tackle this T-bolt. It scales out pretty close to the real thing, and it looks right. But this one isn’t for sissies. It’s lots of work — too much, in my opinion. If you want to take it on, dry-fit everything as many times as it takes to get it dead on. I’m sorry to say, that may not be enough. It’s definitely not for beginners.
Note: A version of this review appeared in the January 2015 FineScale Modeler.