Republic P-47D-27 Thunderbolt in French Service

P-47D-FRENCH-RIGHT

Vital Stats

Manufacturer: Trumpeter
Scale: 1:32
Aircraft: Republic P-47D-27 Thunderbolt
Markings: C9*I | Free French Air Force | GC I/5 “Champagne”| 1945
Aftermarket: Eduard PE interior | Eduard masks | Master Details Mk.VIII gunsight | Scale Precision Paint Masks | HGW microtextile seatbelts | Scale Aircraft Conversions metal gear struts | Quickboost .50 cal blast tubes | Barracuda Studios block tread wheels
Paints: Gunze Sangyo Mr. Color

Mini-Review

Trumpeter’s P-47 is a mother******. It’s great in some areas, and sloppy and infuriating in others. Will I build another? To be honest I don’t know. Having toyed with the Hasegawa and build the Trumpeter kit, in my opinion Tamiya’s 1/48 offering is better than either of them. If the rumors of their next kit are true, they’ll soon have a 1/32 R-2800 engine out there, making a big Tamiyabolt a definite possibility in the next few years.

Aftermarket Verdicts:

Eduard PE interior: Overall, Eduard’s PE set is extremely well done – particularly in the replacement seat and intricate and awesome gunsight mount. But the instrument panel was way too blue/gray.
Master Details Mk.VIII gunsight: I consider this one mandatory for anybody building a Trumpeter P-47, considering how laughably oversized the kit’s sight is…
HGW Seatbelts: Microtextile seatbelts are the bee’s knees.
SAC metal gear struts: Better than the kit struts, but that’s the best I can say. What I wouldn’t give for a set of G-Factor legs, or some Eduard ones on par with their bronze struts for the MiG-21.
Quickboost guns: Not as good as Master’s turned barrels, but they were installable after the fact. Next time, I’d go for the Hasegawa brass.
Barracuda wheels: Simply excellent. The best 1/32 P-47 tires on the market…not that that’s saying much!

Detail – 3

The detail in Trumpeter’s P-47 is a mixed bag and plagued with inaccuracies. Overdone rivets abound, particularly on the gun doors. The windscreen framing is vague and a half. The wheels are just laughably inaccurate. The Mk.VIII gunsight is basically rendered in 1/24 scale. The engine details just don’t match up with a real R-2800. And so on.

Engineering – 3

Trumpeter got many things right with the Jug. The wing spars, the one-piece cowl, the wonderful way the engine slots into the cowl and “locks” the cowl flaps into place, etc. But for everything it got right, it botched something else. The overly complicated and poor-fitting fuselage spine, or the unnecessary ductwork inside the fuselage, or the vague fit of the .50 cals in the gun bays. And don’t even get me started on the retarded engine mounts (I ended up not using them at all).

Fit – 3

While the overall fit was pretty good, the “micro-fit”, i.e. the fit in localized areas, was always just a hair off, requiring untold amounts of sanding, grinding and cutting.

Instructions – 2

While these aren’t the worst instructions I’ve seen, they follow Trumpeter’s usual pattern of taking subassemblies all the way to completion, which is impossible if you plan to build and paint this thing.

Markings – 5

The masks from Scale Precision were top-notch and I really can’t complain about them at all!

Trumpeter is your best bet for a 1/32 Jug, but it’s still a total bastard.