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P-47 Thunderbolt

Republic P-47 Thunderbolt

Nicknamed the “Jug” the P-47 Thunderbolt was produced in larger numbers than other fighters, Jug was short for Juggernaut. More than 15,000 “T-Bolts” were built in World War II. The P-47 “T-Bolt” a barrel shaped fighter proved to be one of the most useful Allied fighters in all Theaters. It played a key role in the defeat of Germany in Italy.

With an outstanding record of one loss to every five enemy aircraft destroyed. The “T-Bolt” could extend it range with a larger external drop tank that could be jettisoned when empty.

The “Jug’s” European record tallied a total of 3,700 German aircraft shot down in air combat. Plus a total of another 3,300 destroyed on the ground.

The P-47 Thunderbolt was a designed by a Russian immigrant Alexander de Seversky and a Georgian immigrant Alexander Kartveli. Both designers had left their homelands to escape the Bolsheviks.

Early models proved to be inferior to the German fighters. So Alexander Kartveli proposed a much larger fighter to the U.S. Army Air Corp in June of 1940. The U.S. Army Air Corp ordered a prototype in September and it was designated XP-47B the older design XP-47A had almost nothing in common with the new design was abandoned.

All-metal construction with a fabric-covered tail and control surfaces, the XP-47B had elliptical wings. The straight leading edge was slightly swept back. It had a very roomy cockpit with very comfortable lounge chair pilot’s seat. There was even air conditioning in the cabin providing extra convenience for the pilot. It also had self-sealing fuel tanks for both the main and auxiliary that had a capacity of 305 U.S. gal.

Power came from a Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp two-row 18-cylinder radial engine producing 2,000 hp and turning a four-bladed Curtiss Electric constant-speed propeller 146 in in diameter. The loss of the AP-4 prototype to an engine fire ended the experiments with tight-fitting cowlings, so the engine was placed in a broad cowling that opened at the front in a "horse collar"-shaped ellipse. The cowling allowed cooling air for the engine, left and right oil coolers, and the turbo-supercharger intercooler system. The engine exhaust gases were routed into a pair of wastegate-equipped pipes that ran along each side of the cockpit to drive the turbo-supercharger turbine at the bottom of the fuselage about halfway between cockpit and tail.

At full power, the pipes glowed red at their forward ends and the turbine spun at 21,300 rpm. The complicated turbo-supercharger system with its ductwork gave the XP-47B a deep fuselage, and the wings had to be mounted in a relatively high position. This was problematic since long landing gear was needed to provide ground clearance for the propeller. To reduce the size and weight of the long landing gear and so that wing-mounted machine guns could be fitted; each main gear strut was fitted with an ingenious mechanism by which it telescoped out 9 in when extended.