P-47D Bubbletop Fighter Aircraft WWII

Another beautifully engineered kit by Tamiya. This version of the P-47D Thunderbolt is a joy to build. Typical of Tamiya, the fit is excellent and the instructions are clear and concise. The detail is also excellent. It produces a beautiful display piece. I highly recommend this kit to any skill level of model builder.

I think very highly of Tamiya models. The P-47D Bubbletop is no exception to that rule. While this kit is engineered to an extremely high standard, and you sometimes think you could skip the glue because the parts fit so well together, there are some small issues which make this kit not for a beginner modeler. First, the cost is a bit high for learning. Second, Tamiya’s instructions require some experience putting models together and interpreting which version of parts goes with the model you are trying to assemble. Not that they aren’t good – it’s just a lot of information like part number, paint number, and letter identifiers like A, B, or C depending upon the variant. Third, this kit in particular has parts that fit like a glove. You must dry fit before putting glue to the parts or you risk ruining the surface. That said this is a fantastic model. No issues with assembly, limited to no gaps for filling, and nice weapons/external fuel tank choices. I was a bit disappointed with the decals, not that they aren’t good, just the choice of the subjects but you can find many other P-47D decals at HobbyLinc. The finished product is outstanding and I would think this kit, and Tamiya’s P-47 Razorback version, are the best in scale money can buy. I highly recommended this kit to all but very new modelers.

Tamiya is well known for producing super-high quality kits with very clever engineering designed to help the model come together more cleanly and minimize the amount of work you need to do cleaning up the assembly. This kit did not disappoint, everything from the cockpit to the landing gear to the gun barrel shrouds were precision-engineered to the absolute limit, making the model come together like Legos. The model itself is also extremely well detailed and takes very well to aftermarket upgrades, of which there are plenty available from Eduard and other modelling supply companies. I used the standard upgrade kit, the gun bays, and resin wheel sets for my build. The parts are very cleanly molded with little-to-no flash, and the canopy was molded in a way as to avoid any nasty seam lines, removing the need for any polishing work which is often needed for teardrop canopies in other kits. Masking sheets for the clear parts are NOT provided, you will need to purchase these aftermarket or make your own. Plenty of accessories are available for you to customize the loadout for your model, including extra fuel tanks, rockets, and bombs, and typical loadouts that the plane used on its missions are also given in the instructions. I went with the ground-attack loadout, outfitting my plane with rocket tubes, 500lb bombs, and the 108gal flat drop tank (The second option is for long-range escort and loads the plane up with as much fuel as it can carry). The instructions are very well diagrammed and organized, so it is very clear where each part is to be used and what colors to paint the parts where needed. The colors are given in the Tamiya color range, which is standard with their kits. I largely stuck with the assigned colors in the instructions, but deviated heavily for the exterior paintwork. My goal with this build was achieving the most realistic metal finish possible on the body, which required specialty paints from Alclad to achieve. You can still get a great result with the recommended color in the instructions for the outside, though. The downside to a model engineered so precisely is that it comes with a lot of small parts. This kit may come together easily, but there are more beginner-friendly options out there if that is what you are looking for. There are many small parts to work with, mainly in the cockpit and landing gear, and the decal sheet is, in my view, over-engineered. It was to the point where I completely wrote off even attempting to use the invasion-stripe decals (easily a third of the decals on the sheet are just for those!) and painted them onto the model. Overall, this kit was a great experience to build and the results show. It is one of the best renditions of the P-47D on the market today, hands down. With sufficient references you can get very, very close to replicating a real aircraft with this kit, and I highly recommend this to any intermediate-to-advanced builders out there.