Republic P-47D Thunderbolt

From The Air Combat Wiki

Contents 1 Fighter Ace Screenshots 2 Fighter Ace Ratings 3 Fighter Ace Performance 4 Historical Statistics 5 Strengths 6 Weaknesses 7 History 8 Sources 9 See Also

Fighter Ace Screenshots

Fighter Ace screenshot by JG51_Nevermiss	Fighter Ace museum screenshot by Doug@HQ	Fighter Ace museum screenshot by Doug@HQ	Fighter Ace museum screenshot by Doug@HQ
Fighter Ace museum screenshot by Doug@HQ	Fighter Ace museum screenshot by Doug@HQ	Fighter Ace museum screenshot by Doug@HQ	Fighter Ace museum screenshot by Doug@HQ

Fighter Ace Ratings

Durability: 5

Speed: 8

Maneuverability: 4

Firepower: 6

Climb Rate: 5

Ground Attack: 5

Fighter Ace Performance

Top Speeds						Climb Rates
	Sea Level	4921' 1500m	9843' 3000m	19685' 6000m	Best Speed	Best IAS	to 1000m	to 3000m	to 6000m
mph	335	356	375	396	416@ 29856'	180 mph	1:30	3:56	8:30
mph WEP	350	370	377	408	429@ 29856'
kph	539	572	604	637	669@ 9100m	290 kph
kph WEP	563	595	606	656	690@ 9100m

Historical Statistics

Service Date: June 1943

Primary Guns: 4x Browning M2 0.5" (12.7mm) machine guns with 425 rpg in wings

Secondary Guns: 4x Browning M2 0.5" (12.7mm) machine guns with 425 rpg in wings

Ordnance: 1x 250 lb (113 kg) or 1x 500 lb (227 kg) or 1x 1000 lb (454 kg) bomb or 1x 1200 lb (544 kg) drop tank under fuselage, plus 2x 250 lb (113 kg) or 2x 500 lb (227 kg) or 2x 1000 lb (454 kg) or 2x 450 lb (204 kg) drop tanks or 10x 138 lb 5" HVAR A2G rockets under wings. Total of 2580 lbs (1170 kg) of external stores.

Engine(s): 1x Pratt & Whitney R-2800-59 rated for 2,300 hp at sea level (2,535 hp with WEP)

Int Fuel Capacity: 1,944 lbs (882 kg)

Ext Fuel Capacity: 2x 450 lbs (2x 204 kg) or 1,200 lbs (544 kg)

Maximum Speeds: 350 mph (563 kph) at sea level, 426 mph (686 kph) at 30,000 ft (9,144 m)

Ceiling: 42,000 ft (12,802 m)

Loaded Weight: 14,000 lbs (6,350 kg)

Wing Area: 300 sq ft (27.9 sq m)

Wing Loading: 46.7 lbs/sq ft (227.6 kg/sq m)

Strengths

Durability: No other fighter can absorb punishment like the P-47.

Guns: Its eight .50 caliber machine guns gave the Jug one of the heaviest fighter armaments of the war.

Ground Attack: Capable of carrying over 2,000 lbs. of bombs and/or rockets, the P-47 is a deadly "ground pounder".

Speed: With a top speed of over 425 mph, the P-47D was one of the fastest prop fighters of the war.

Roll Rate: The P-47s fast rate of roll allows it to compete with more maneuverable fighters.

Weaknesses

Maneuverability: With a gross weight of over 14,000 lbs. the Jug is hardly a nimble dogfighter.

Acceleration: The big fighter takes a while to get up to speed.

Climb Rate: As with acceleration and maneuverability, the Jug’s large size keeps it from climbing as fast as some of its contemporaries.

History

The P-47 Thunderbolt, affectionately known as the "Jug" by its pilots, was the evolutionary pinnacle of the aircraft designed by Alexander De Seversky and Alexander Kartveli. De Seversky was a brilliant engineer who had served in the Russian air force in World War I. Despite losing a leg in a bomber crash, he went on to shoot down 13 German planes before he was delegated to serve on the Russian Naval Mission to the United States. Following the Revolution of 1917, he defected to the US and finally earned his citizenship in 1927.

Having already served as an advisor to General Billy Mitchell and consulting engineer for the US War Department, De Seversky, formed his own aircraft engineering company, the Seversky Aircraft Corporation, in 1931. Known as "Sasha" to his friends, he served as president, designer, and chief test pilot and was virtually a one-man company until he hired fellow émigré Kartveli.

The first military aircraft produced by Seversky was the BT-8 trainer, but a lack of power led to it be dropped in favor of North American's BT-9, which evolved into the excellent T-6 Texan. Their next effort was the P-35, which beat our Curtiss' P-36 Hawk for an army contract. With the Army looking for an improvement to the P-35, Kartveli combined Boeing's new turbo-supercharger with a Pratt & Whitney R-1830 engine to form the YP-43 Lancer, which was capable of reaching a speed of 350 mph and an altitude of 38,000 feet.

The XP-47 was initially designed as a streamlined, small, lightweight fighter built around the Allison V-1710 engine, but the overall performance figures were outdated by European fighter standards. Kartveli then decided to design the plane around a turbo-supercharged P&W R-2800 engine rated for 2,000 hp. The resulting design was given the XP-47B designation by the Army.

With its limited internal fuel capacity, the P-47B was unable to penetrate German airspace for very long, so in the "C" model a ventral drop tank/bomb mount was added, increasing range by about 50%. The "D" model introduced another pair of hard points under the wings, stressed to carry up to 1,000 lbs. each. Alternatively, ten 5" HVAR rockets could be mounted on zero-length launchers under the wings in place of bombs or drop tanks.

Mid-way through production of the P-47D, a new "bubble" canopy was installed, which gave the pilot much better vision all around, particularly to the rear. Water injection and a newer "paddle-blade" propeller increased overall top speed and climb-rate. Eventually the Thunderbolt was replaced by the P-51 Mustang as the principal escort fighter, which allowed the Jugs to concentrate on ground attack missions, a role to which they took like a fish to water.

Featuring eight .50 caliber machine guns in the wings, the Jug was the heaviest armed fighter in the US inventory, and could slug it out with the heavy cannon armed fighters the Axis put into the sky. Although it could neither climb nor maneuver with Luftwaffe aircraft, nothing could dive faster than the P-47, a fact that saved many a pilot's life.

Sources

Green, William; War Planes Of The Second World War: Fighters Volume Four; Macdonald & Co., London; 1961.

Davis, Larry; P-47 Thunderbolt In Action, Aircraft Number 67; Squadron/Signal Publications, Carrollton, Texas; 1984.

See Also

Fighter Ace Planes Inventory

The Republic Aviation Corporation

Aircraft Manufacturers During World War II