P-47 Thunderbolt Family

[Peebs]

They're True Details resin wheels Pete. They do add a lot to the realism and they were only a couple of dollars. I add them to a lot of my models.

Hmmmm I can see myself spending up on all these aftermarket bits n pieces! lol

cheers
pete

 

[hawkeye2an]

In an earlier post I asked how you made your base. It looks very realistic, is it a secret, or can you tell me?

 

[T Bolt]

In an earlier post I asked how you made your base. It looks very realistic, is it a secret, or can you tell me?

Sorry about that I guess I missed it. The base is a piece of foam board with a pebble pattern I bought at Hobby Lobby craft supply store. I laid out a 5"x5" grid (works out to be 20 x20' IN 1/48th) on it at a skew to the edge of the board with a ultra fine point Sharpie permanent marker, then went over each line again with the marker widening and thickening the lines to make them look like the pavement joints had opened and aged. Then I went back and added cracks and spalling. The whole thing took me about an hour to do. I'm a bridge and highway construction inspector so I've seen a lot of cracked pavement so I knew what I wanted it to look like.

 

[Gnomey]

Nice work!

 

[Mr. Ed]

I've always loved the P-47 but I'm trying to become a better modeler before I build another. I did the Monogram 1.48th razorback kit and the Testors 1/48 crome plated kit (remember those?) as a kid. Have you ever seen the film Thunderbolt by William Wyler? It's a must see not only for P-47 fans but really for anyone. It's a great documentary about what life was like for Thunderbolt pilots during Operation Strangle over Italy in 1944. And it was filmed in color!

 

[T Bolt]

Yes I remember the Testor chrome plated series Ed. I built the Thunderbolt, Mustang, and Lysander when I was a kid. I have the William Wyler film on a DVD I bought on eBay that also had 3 p-47 pilot training films. Another good color Movie is "Fighter Squadron" which was made right after the war. The plot is typ. War movie of the period, but there is a lot of real color footage, along with a lot of stuff filmed for the movie. It was probably the last big group of Thunderbolts flying together.

 

[Airframes]

Glenn, is 'Fighter Squadron' the movie which used P51B's as Bf109's? It's a movie I've always wanted to see, but have only seen 'stills' from it.

 

[T Bolt]

It's been a few years since I watched it Terry, but I think they did use P-51Bs or Cs as 109s. I have it at home on VHS somewhere. Good excuse to watch it again. I'll have to dig it up tonight.

 

[Airframes]

Thanks mate. Somewhere, I've got a couple of B&W shots of one the P51B/C's, painted overall in a dark colour, probably dark OG, with emphasised black and white crosses.

 

[T Bolt]

Found this trailer on the net Terry
Fighter Squadron trailer
You can see them for a second or two at the beginning. Defiantly P-51s, but I think they might be P-51Ds with the bubble top, not sure though. I'll have to look at the video tonight

 

[Airframes]

Got a B&W pic of a P51D in the same colours, but can't find out if it was in the same movie or not.

 

[T Bolt]

Terry, I took these shots wile watching the VHS last night. Sad excuse for a P-51 windscreen in the close-up, but then its supposed to be a Bf-109 so I should say a terrible excuse for a 109 windscreen.

 

[Airframes]

Great stuff, thanks Glenn! Yep, they look like the B&W pic i have, so I presume the P51B/C's were in a different movie, possibly made near the end of WW2.
That close-up looks like a cross between a P47, Bearcat and P51D - or maybe even some bits with a Skyraider canopy !!!

 

[T Bolt]

I think it's just something the Hollywood prop man came up with. The P-47 canopy they used looks like it's the real thing though, but only someone with a real one in there basement would probably notice.

 

[A4K]

SHOW OFF!!!!!

The cockpit looks pretty comprehensive - maybe they shot that scene in a real P-47 fuse?

 

[T Bolt]

I think maybe they did. If you look at the bottom of the center pain of the windscreen you can see the defrosting vent bar. That's hard to see in pictures of the real thing and I doubt if it would be included if it was just a real canopy on a prop fuselage as it runs down through the gun sight mount and has a complicated curve to make it fit. Not worth the trouble for 10 seconds of film. I worked on my vent bar for two days to get it to fit right.

 

[Dusan Lekic]

NMF look fantastic! Well done!

All the best!

Dusan.

 

[A4K]

Yep, looks like you're right there Glenn! Bloody hell, always learn something in this place (Thanks!)

 

[Airframes]

Yep, they'd use a real fuselage - afterall, they had plenty of them for the 'action' scenes.

 

[T Bolt]

Had to add these two to my old 1/72 P-47 Thunderbolt Family thread

First the XP-47J.
It is a Fastrodney resin/vacuform conversion kit for the Academy Razorback kit with home-made decals for the tail fin and Superman art.