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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