1/48 Tamiya P-47D Bubbletop

by Kursad Albayrak on Oct 29 2003

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  Republic Day in Turkey 

 

This is my Tamiya 1/48 P-47D Bubbletop depicting a P-47D RE-30 of the Turkish Air Force during 1951. It was converted to a P-47D RE-30 with a fin fillet from the Hasegawa kit, and minor modifications.

 When Tamiya announced their new P-47D razorback early this year, I knew that a Bubbletop version would be following, and this could only mean one thing: a new Turkish Air Force P-47D on my shelf.  Early rumors and test shots indicated that the kit would not include the fin fillet, so I posted a "help wanted" ad on Hyperscale, which was quickly replied by a fellow modeler: Many thanks go to Mr. Stephen Prior (of Glasgow, Scotland), who very kindly sent me a Hasegawa P-47D fin fillet part from his spares box. I quickly gathered reference material, and started waiting for the kit with bated breath....

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P-47D in the Turkish Air Force:

  Along with the Spitfire Mk.IX and Mosquito, the P-47D was the most important front-line combat type in the Turkish Air Force during the tumultuous period right after the WWII.  Turkey was under threat for the victorious Soviet Union and territory demands of Stalin, and the Turkish government initiated a rapprochment to the United States . The US government responded by selling Turkey a sizable number of weapons and defense material; and P-47D's were among these.

  Turkish P-47D's were of the RE-30 variant, and they served successfully until the arrival of F-84G's in 1953-1954. One example survives in the open-air exhibit area of the Istanbul Aviation Museum in Yesilkoy.

I wasn't disappointed when I received the kit from HLJ: This had to be the best 1/48 aircraft kit I have seen so far, and it was a pleasure to build, too! The kit is exquisitely molded with excellent detail.

 The cockpit was built out of the box, with the addition of Eduard colored seat belts. I used RAAF Foliage Green for the distinctive Dark Dull Gray interior of the P-47D. The cockpit of the RE-30 variant had a flat floor, but I used the corrugated kit floor as is, reasoning that the cockpit floor is not really visible on my shelf. In retrospect, I probably might have fitted a True Details or BB resin cockpit floor..

The conversion was a very easy affair: The Hasegawa fin fillet fit very well with minimal use of Testors' Red Acryl Putty and CA glue. I scratchbuilt compressibility flaps from Evergreen styrene sheets, and relocated the landing light on the wing.

I used SNJ for the aluminum finish, and Floquil Reefer White for the white part of the cowling, typical of P-47D's of the 8.Alay.

I weathered the model with a subtle sludge wash of dark grey acrylic paint. The Turkish insignia are made from Tauro's solid red and white decal sheets, and the flags are from Kedi Decals.

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The finished model depicts "DE-39", a P-47D of the 8.Alay of the Turkish Air Force based at Erzincan during 1951. The "DE" stands for "Deprem" (Earthquake), the official name of the 8.Alay during the 1950-1952 period, when units of the Turkish Air Force were assigned names.

Kursad

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Photos and text © by Kursad Albayrak