P-47 Thunderbolt ideas.

[gooberliberation]

I figured that a thread for the P-47 would be started sooner or later.

How about... take a razorback, rip out the turbo and add a bomb-bay for a dedicated ground attack plane. Is there enough room for a bomb-bay in that big fat belly?

[GTX]

Possibly - the picture below gives an indication of the turbocharger ducting requirements.  Maybe a tail gunner as well?



Regards,

Greg

[GTX]

What about a turboprop P-47 - competitor to the turbo-prop mustang?

Regards,

Greg

[B777LR]

Twin-bolt!

Heavyweight very longrange escort fighter to escort B-29s from iceland to berlin and back.

[GTX]

How would you do the Twin-bolt?  Zwilling/F-82 style with 2 complete fuselages or P-40 twin style with one fuselage and an engine on each wing (nose being dedicated to guns or something)?

Regards,

Greg

[B777LR]

Just two P-47s grafted together, with one cockpit blanked over for fuel.

[r16]

1   ejection chutes
2   radio aerial
3   oil coolers displaced by the fuselage cannons , wings are fully occupied by the displaced fuel   and           water/methanol mixture
4   external exhaust tube
5   metal section where the strut joins
6   hinge point of the armoured clamshell canopy
7   side mounted P-38 turbosupercharger , on one side of the fuselage only
8   this area will probably be burned off , check colour P-38 pictures
9   Americans don't like armoured planes , Russians do .

bombbay and the externally mounted armour plates around the cockpit are not shown for clarity.

[jcf]

One thing to bear in mind is that the deepest part of that big fat belly on a D model
is just a sheet-metal fairing over the piping for the drop tank.

As to dumping the turbo-supercharger, that is doable as long as you don't mind losing the high-altitude performance,
without the turbo the normal engine power rating on many R-2800 dashes drops to around 1450hp at altitudes between 13,500 and 16,000 ft.
So you'd want a supercharger and carb setup that was optimized for max output at low level, 2300hp could be easily attained.
It would be a fuel hog, so range would suffer.

Jon

[kitflubber]

I had an idea last night for a WWII fighter augmentation (I applied it to a P-47, 'cause they're purdy): stubby vertical fins on the wings house the guns, and the guns have the ability to pivot up (and maybe down?) a few degrees.

The advantage would be in the classic round robin dog fight chase, one could simulate a tighter turning radius by pivoting the guns up, and closing the angle gap.

Thoughts?

[elmayerle]

Hmm, for a "simple mod", replace the 4X or 3X .50 cal macine guns in each wing with 2X 20mm cannon.  Other ideas that come to mind include the XP-47H engine installation on a P-47N airframe, a hybrid between the XP-47J and the P-47N, and a XP-72 derivative with the wing planform of the P-47N and a five-bladed prop to use all the R4360's power without the delicate gearboxes that contraprops seem to require for that engine.

[philp]

The Canon armed Thunderbolt.  So simple it just has to be done and put on the table for the JMNs.

[jcf]

Building on Evan's suggestions:
R-3350 in an XP-47J type cowling, P-47N wings/fuselage, four 20mm cannon and a tailhook as Republic's unofficial competitor in the USN BT competition that was won by the XBT2D/AD Skyraider.

 


XP-47J

Jon

[kitnut617]

in 1/72 you could use the Sharkit XP-47J as a base:

[Stitch_83]

How about the Twinbolt concept with an air interception radar in one of the fuselages for long range pre-emptive interceptions (I'm going back to the B-29 escort idea)

Stuart

[Weaver]

How about the Twinbolt concept with an air interception radar in one of the fuselages for long range pre-emptive interceptions (I'm going back to the B-29 escort idea)

Stuart

WWII AI radar didn't have much range - few miles at the outside. Night fighters depended on GCI to get them to within "visual range" of the target, the AI radar then compensating for the fact that they couldn't aquire the target visually.