Hasegawa 1/72 P-47D Thunderbolt, 433240/IA-N, “Tarheel Hal”, Lt Ike Davis, 366th FS, 358th FG, Toul France, January 1945

The Subject

At the time I wasn’t aware of any other variants of the P-47D, other than razorback and bubble top.  I’d originally planned to add the vertical fin extension once I had some sheet plastic.  Unfortunately I learned that this was a feature of the P-47N, which initially I did not care because I thought it was otherwise identical to the D, but then found the wing was different which then stalled permanently this improvement on accuracy.  

I’ve since learned that Tarheel Hal was a P-47D-30 which DID have the fin extension.  Sigh, I’ll have to do something about this now won’t I?

The Model

After building Monogram, Revell, Airfix, Lindberg, and Frog kits, with all the challenges those entailed, I was assigned to Lemoore Naval Air Station in California not far from San Jose.  I read about a hobby shop up there and convinced my wife to indulge me and I’d treat her to lunch and a nice drive.  I forget the name now, but the shop was huge!  It easily spanned the size of a modern drug store and was nothing but plastic scale model kits and lots of accessories.  It was here that I first found out about vac forms and aftermarket decals — and high end Japanese made kits.

After I saw the Microscale decal sheet, I picked up both the razorback and bubble top P-47D kits from Hasegawa, my previous P-47 model having been the ancient Lindberg P-47B which had long ago lost its battle with moving.  I got some orange and blue enamels and we headed to a nice restaurant as promised.

The kit was a dream to build, yet another weekend build but it went together so quickly and cleanly that I was convinced I’d never make another kit from any other maker.  Again hand painted with enamels as I still did not have an airbrush, but I now had Humbrol and was duly impressed.

The decals went on okay-ish — I remember the blue decals crackling a bit because I’d not waited long enough for the enamels to fully cure, but some dark blue touch up hid that completely.  The orange was a challenge and frankly quite disappointing for my skills with a brush at the time.

Summary

I have a new set of these decals and I plan to apply these again to a better model of the P-47D.