Republic P-47 Thunderbolt
The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt was a large single-seat fighter and fighter-bomber built by Republic Aviation in the United States during the Second World War. First flown in 1941, it served with the United States Army Air Forces as a high-altitude escort and became one of the war's principal ground-attack aircraft; more Thunderbolts were built than any other American fighter.
Why It Mattered
The Thunderbolt was the heavyweight of the United States Army Air Forces' fighter force in the Second World War, a large single-seat aircraft built around the most powerful air-cooled radial engine of its day. American commanders counted it among their three premier fighters, alongside the North American P-51 Mustang and the Lockheed P-38 Lightning. It earned that standing in two roles: as a high-altitude escort fighter over Europe, and as a fighter-bomber against ground targets. Pilots trusted it because its structure and radial engine could absorb severe battle damage and still bring them home. Produced from 1941 through 1945, it was there for the whole of the American war.
Design Notes
Alexander Kartveli designed the Thunderbolt around the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp, an 18-cylinder, two-row radial engine. To preserve the engine's power at altitude, he placed a turbo-supercharger inside the aft fuselage, and the aircraft was effectively designed around that system and its ducting. The ductwork took up roughly half of the fuselage's internal volume, which accounts for the type's deep belly and unusual size for a single-seat fighter. Armament was heavy: eight .50-caliber machine guns in the wings, and the aircraft could also carry rockets or a bomb load of up to 2,500 pounds. The widely built D model introduced a sliding bubble canopy, which gave the pilot a much better view than the earlier framed canopy had.
Operational History
The first Thunderbolts were sent to England by the end of 1942, and the type's first combat mission followed on 10 March 1943. From English bases, Thunderbolt groups escorted American heavy bombers; as fuel capacity grew, the escorts could accompany the bombers on raids all the way into Germany. Early combat reports praised the fighter's dive speed and high-altitude performance, and its ability to take punishment. After the Normandy invasion, the type turned increasingly to ground attack, work for which it was probably the best American aircraft of the war. By the war's end, Thunderbolt pilots had flown over 746,000 sorties of all types and achieved a reported aerial kill ratio of 4.6:1. The Royal Air Force received 240 early Thunderbolts and hundreds of later ones, using them against Japanese forces in Burma. Mexico's 201st Fighter Squadron flew Thunderbolts with the U.S. Fifth Air Force in the Philippines during 1945. In the Pacific, Republic introduced the long-range P-47N in April 1945, in time for the final campaigns against Japan.
Afterlife
With the war over, orders for 5,934 further Thunderbolts were cancelled, and production ended. Redesignated F-47 in 1947, the type served with the Air National Guard into the early 1950s. Foreign air forces flew it well into the 1950s: Turkey operated 180 P-47Ds from 1948, and Nationalist Chinese units employed both D and N models from Taiwan. Restoration work on the type continues: the American Heritage Museum's P-47D is currently being returned to airworthy condition in Florida. A small number still fly, among them the Planes of Fame Air Museum's Curtiss-built P-47G, which took to the air again in May 1985 after restoration and remains flyable.