Review: 1/48 scale MiniArt P-47D-30RE Thunderbolt "basic" # 48023 Kit Review

This is a model that I knew I had to get my hands on once it was available. Lo and behold, it was offered for "Presale" at Squadron a month or so ago... Just when I spent too much on other kits for Christmas and I thought my wallet was safe.

When I was a little boy, there was a museum near our home, that had a real "full scale" F-47N parked out front in the open air, exposed to the elements. My Dad would stop by regularly and let me literally play inside the cockpit as if I was the pilot. Dad would pick me up and place me on the wing just above the main landing gear. He would then climb up on the Thunderbolt and slide the canopy open. Then once he saw the cockpit was clear of "all the critters", he would sit me in the pilot's seat and I would play there until Dad got tired. I remember moving the joystick around and having a blast... I was just a wee little one but I remember it just like it happened yesterday.

So I am kind of a P-47 fan you might say...

Sadly the Museum of Speed is no longer, the building was demolished, and the plane was sold off, eventually used to provide wing parts to repair a P-47 that was damaged in a landing when it caught fire. Rumor has it the P-47N has since been slated for a full on restoration. The Thunderbolt I played in was one of the last flying F-47N's that was in service with the Puerto Rico ANG when it was flown to Daytona Beach in 1955.

This kit was made available to me by my wallet, so I spent my hard earned money on it... and it was not a gift to get a favorable review. So I can promise you what you see here is factual. You can look at the pictures I'm providing, and decide for yourself.

This model looks VERY nice in the box, and I can see it hitting the work bench soon.

So with the introduction out of the way, lets get on to what is in the box... 🙂

The illustrations on the side of the box show what the decal options are included inside. There is also a short description of the unit with which the Thunderbolt served with. Both Thunderbolts are in a bare metal finish.
The first option is "Torrid Tessie" which was flown over Italy in 1945.

The second option is this plane. It is named "Look ! - No Hands " It was also in service in 1945. I have this very same decal set that was included as part of an old 1/32 scale Revell P-47 D bubbletop kit. I'm interested to see if there are any discrepancies noted between the two. I will check into this and report my findings back to you later.

The decals for the model were manufactured by Cartograf, so they should work well, and be printed nicely.

This is what we see when the box top is removed, revealing what is inside. It is packaged a substantial cardboard box, that reminds me of the recent "new tool" ICM kit boxes. This is a "good" thing.

The plastic parts are molded in a Gray plastic, with the canopy and other lighting / lens parts done in a Clear plastic.
My parts were all molded exceptionally well, with no readily apparent sink marks or flashing. The molding quality is nice and very crisp.

The kit's plastic parts are all stored inside a single larger plastic bag. This is a "not so good" thing.

My kit's parts trees were not individually wrapped as we will find with some other manufacturers, especially with some of the higher end companies.

Packaging the parts this way might allow them to become scratched or damaged with rough handling. But we are not supposed to play football with our models in the box. OK maybe the delivery service will, prior to arriving at their intended destination.

Even so, my kit arrived in excellent condition, with nothing found damaged or missing upon close inspection.

Once the plastic parts are removed from the box, you will find the instructions and the decals are placed on the bottom of the box.

The instructions are sealed in a bag with the decals. There is a second smaller set of decals that are to be used for the stencils and the ordnance that is provided in the kit.

The majority of the decals are placed on a larger sheet, and mine were placed on the other side of the instructions. Here you can see the ordnance painting and decal markings are printed in color. This is a nice option.

This is the single large bag found inside the box upon opening. Inside the bag are contained all of the Gray parts. You will also find the Clear parts are secured inside the large bag too.

However, the Clear parts are wisely bagged in a smaller separate bag to help prevent damage or scratching.

The fuselage halves are nicely molded. They are done as a single half section, similar to how the modern Eduard kits are molded. This is a good thing because it eliminates the need for inserts which can be troublesome. The extended fin is molded in place along the top of the fuselage spine, so you will not have to rely upon an insert or separate rudder / fin assembly here.

I consider this a plus. Time will tell if I am wrong or not.

The rivet and panel lines are nicely done. The intercooler doors are molded in place, and are in the "Open" position. Here you can see some of the panel lines and rivets.

This is the parts tree that contains the stabilizers, flight controls, flaps and other smaller parts. These "moveable" items are molded separately, and are not molded fixed in place. The details look very nice. I have not studied the instructions yet, but it may be possible to pose these in a deflected position.

However, I vaguely remember reading something about how the P-47 had a spring loaded control stick. This would have kept the controls centered, especially if the controls were locked. So these parts were likely to be seen centered. This is what we see in pictures of P-47's that are parked.

This is a close up showing the flaps, and ailerons. You can also see the main landing gear covers, and a one piece tail wheel cover to be used if you decide to build your model posed "In Flight".

Here you can see the details as molded into one of the flaps.

The main landing gear doors are provided as a single part to use if you wanted to build your model "in flight". There is a second set that was shown previously that are to be used if you are building your Thunderbolt with the gear down.

There are also two different styles of main landing gear struts. One is compressed, as if the plane was fully loaded prior to a mission. The other set of main gear struts are more relaxed, and will give the plane the look as if it was parked empty after completing a mission.

Here are the parts included that set this kit apart from the earlier release of the P-47D-25. This shows the "Flat" style of cockpit floor, and the different style of cockpit side walls. The "Flat" style was incorporated into the assembly line sometime during the P-47D-28 series of aircraft at both of the Republic factories.

The instrument panel was also different on the later T-Bolts. You thought I was going to say "Jugs" didn't you ? Not me. 😉

The earlier versions had the corrugated floors and different side walls.

This is the parts tree that contains the main wheels and tail wheel tires. There are two different sets of tires, and two different tread styles are included.

Another set of bulged tires are included on another plastic parts tree, and we will get to that one soon.

On the wings, Mini Art has followed the Tamiya building style and decided to use inserts to depict the changes that were made as the aircraft evolved over time. Once such area was the landing light. Here we can see the landing light, which was retractable on the real plane.

This particular landing light blanking insert also has the dive brake flaps molded into them. The P-47 had a problem with compressibility as it would near the sound barrier in a long dive. So this plane (and the P-38) had compressibility flaps installed on the later models, after several pilots were killed when they could not pull out of a dive.

The need for the compression flaps is why the landing light was moved to the outer wing.

On the earlier P-47, the landing light was located near the landing gear, inboard of the wing mounted MG's.

On the later versions, the landing light was moved further outboard, and was now much closer to the wing tip. This is why we have these inserts shown here.

Only the Curtiss electric asymmetric paddle blade propeller is included. It also has the smaller / pointed propeller hub. Some of these P-47's used a Hamilton Standard prop in the field. The HS prop has a much larger hub and the end is more rounded.

I think you could "borrow" a propeller assembly from one of your Tamiya kits if needed and things would be fine.

So please be sure to check your references here.

Not having a choice of propeller style is something I will remain neutral on as far as a recommendation goes. It would be very nice if Mini Art followed Tamiya's lead here, and included several different propeller styles to give the builder choices.

This is the highlight of the kit in my opinion. The exquisite Pratt and Whitney R-2800 -59 was used in the P-47D-30. This version of the engine used the later style magnetos. These are the ones that look more like a horse shoe crab to me.

However, both the early (rounded more sharper edges) and later (horse shoe crab) styles of magneto are included.

The engine is made up using a bunch of parts. The complete exhaust system is also included, so one could really have some fun with super detailing this one. I believe the engine is a kit of it's own...

Here you can see how crisp the molding is, showing the cooling fins. OK I am a self confessed "gear head" and aviation geek... I love this stuff to the point of almost being obsessed with it. Well, maybe not that bad, but close ! 😉

In this photo, we can see the two sets of pushrods. The cylinders are nicely molded, and the cooling fins look great. The gear reduction case looks exactly as it should. I have seen quite a few of these "up close and personal" in real life...

On the right side of this picture, you can see some of the various parts that make up the exhaust system.

In this next picture shown above, we can see the two different styles of magneto that I was describing earlier. You can also see part of the exhaust system, and some of the cooling baffles, that were used on the real plane to direct the air flow around and over various places on the cylinders and heads.

The only thing this engine is missing is the oil... 😉 Maybe the plug wires too... 😉

This is what is included as a part of the extensive ordnance and drop tank features.

Here we get two complete plastic trees containing these parts. They are identical.

This kit has bombs, and three different types of fuel tanks,

and it even has a smoke dispenser ! I have never seen that before in a kit.

Score another "good" call for Mini Art here. The ordnance and drop tanks are very nice.

ranging from the small ones,

This kind I have never seen available in plastic before... turns out it is a smoke dispenser used for laying down a smoke screen. At first glance it looks like the kind of drop tank that was used on the Grumman F4F Wildcat and FM-2's.

to the pressed paper / resin kind, and the flat ones,

The larger Lockheed style that was similar (if not the same as) the ones found on PV-1 Ventura's and P-38 Lightning's.

Keep in mind we get the stencils and various other decals for these parts too.

Your spare parts bin is going to get a lot more cramped after this kit is done... You get a LOT of stuff to hang under this Thunderbolt...

There are FOUR different sized bombs included. This thing is loaded with extra stuff...

Score another "Good" for Mini Art..

Now we shift gears, and go check out the tires and wheels this bad boy has...

These are the bulged ones. There are two different style of tread patterns included in the box. One is a "Square with Hole" pattern... and I'm using these bad boys on my Tamiya P47 "Gabreski" plane soon. This is part # D1 and # D3

The other is the typical Diamond pattern and this is what we see used on the bulged / flattened set of tires. The third set also appears to be a variation of the Diamond pattern.

Which brings us to the wheels and tires. No it doesn't have a set of Centerline or Drag Lite racing wheels on it.

But it does have this: You get three different style of wheel hub.

One is the standard "Flat" wheel cover. These could be removed on the real plane. They were held in place by fine threaded AN screws.

The next type is the Six Spoke wheel. This is what you would see when the Flat wheel cover was removed.

Then things get interesting, and may actually point to a future release... There are a pair of Eight Spoke wheels.

These were used on the P-47N ! One of these could be in the future, but only time will tell.

If so, I'll take three please ... 😉

Remember earlier when I was talking about the landing lights ? This shows the wing parts tree. They used a construction style very similar to what Tamiya did with their bubble tops, and went with inserts. As long as these inserts fit well, I don't think it will be a problem. I hope to find out soon ! (as to how they fit that is)...

This next photo shows how they went about using inserts for the proper landing light position. Depending on which variant you are building will determine which location the light was installed.

Since this is a P-47D-30 plane, it uses the insert that places the landing light outboard near the wing tip. This change happened somewhere around the D-27 or D-28 models.

On the earlier D-25 Thunderbolts, the landing light was located near the main landing gear.
This is why we get a flat blanking plate to use as a cover in this spot on the wings...

Tamiya used the same principle, and it makes sense as long as everything fits well.

There is another "Good" thing that I should mention here. It's in regards to the main landing gear. Mini Art has provided two different sets of main gear struts.

One set is compressed, as it the plane is loaded with a full load of ordnance, ammunition, and fuel. Remember the P-47 could have weighed as much as 7 TONS when loaded. So this is quite accurate.

Then they give us another set of main gear struts that are not as compressed. I would use this set if the plane was being built "clean" without anything hanging under the wings or fuselage.

I call this option as another "good" for Mini Art.

This kit was not checked as far as dimensions or the proper location of the panel lines. I didn't even try to do this because it still looks like a P-47 bubble top to me. Your mileage may vary.

I'm not part of the rivet counting crowd... instead I build kits. I hope to get this one on the bench soon. I have a killer set of decals I have had for a few years to build Major Glen Eagleston's P-47D-30. His plane has a solid Yellow Cowling with a huge Black skull and cross bones on it...

So if things work out as planned, look for it to show up in the headlines, sometime soon in the future.

So here is how I scored the kit:
First we have the "Good"

I am very impressed by the P&W R-2800 engine. It looks incredibly well detailed.

The number (and quality) of the various parts to hang under the wings and fuselage.

It's cool to see another tire tread style too, with the addition of the "Square with Hole" tread pattern included as an option.

Having a choice of compressed or unloaded landing gear struts is a nice call too.

Molded in intercooler doors is nice, as is the one piece fuselage that doesn't require inserts.

Now for the "Not So Good" things...

It would have been great if several kinds of propellers were included like how Tamiya does it... Curtiss electric paddle blade, Curtiss electric standard blade, (not the early "pencil" ones). A Hamilton Standard prop would have been nice too.

Packaging the plastic parts in individual bags would have also been a nice touch, but that didn't happen.

I can't complaint though, because all of my parts look great as delivered. If you are planning on keeping this one in your stash and not building it, I would recommend placing the parts in separate bags, especially if you're moving and taking your stash with you.

This kit was provided courtesy of my wallet.

Get one (or two) of these. Build it and have fun. It looks like a great model to me in the box. I will soon see how it builds. That will be the final call.

If you have a kit or aftermarket part or decal set that you would like to see a fair and honest review on, please contact me. You can look at my other reviews.

I don't bash things, but instead I show the reader what is provided, and let them make up their own mind.

As always, comments are encouraged.

Thank you for stopping by.