Andray at Halberd sent me their latest relases for reviews, arriving yesterday. Among them was this XP-47H Superbolt. I dived right in.

This is one of the easiest conversions I have ever done. If the Halberd pieces were cast in gray resin, you would think it was a plastic kit of the XP-47H. The fuselage halves are as thin as the plastic parts they replace. You use the three piece fuselage (left, right, and the lower intake), the Tamiya wings and horizontal stabs and cockpit. Decals are provided for both prototypes, but 42-23297 was the only one that flew before the program was canceled. Yes, it did fly at 495mph on its third flight.

11 attached images. Click to enlarge.

What an extraordinary P47, Tom @tcinla
Never heard about this variant before, the fuselage parts do look very nice indeed.
Wonder how it looks like once finished.

You made it look easy as cheating-at least at this juncture.
I have a Koster conversion of the same and just need to get off my dead donkey and make it happen. Already some huge differences.

@plasticslave - I did a Koster conversion. That and this one don't exist in the same universe with each other. Halberd does the best resin casting I have ever seen. Their P-51 conversions of the Eduard kit (a TF-51D on the way next month) have exactly the same level of surface detail as the Eduard kit. One of the others Andray sent is a full-resin kit of the P-51 Thompson racer "Beguine" - just amazing. He's a one-guy operation in Kyiv. It's incredible to me how it is that Ukraine - with everything going on - is now the "bleeding edge" of scale model kits.

@gblair - yes, this is 1/48. So far my experience is 100% with every one of their kits I have worked with. If you like what they have, get it. You'll like it.

@fuzzmann - great minds think alike. I have that conversion (really nice!) and have been toying with combining the conversion set with a Revell P-47N, since the plan for the production P-72 involved using the P-47N wing. However I am more likely going to do a straight review and create the second prototype, the one with the contraprop. If you want to try that, I will you the idea.

@fuzzmann - you will want to use the contraprops, that was what the production plane would have used.

Those resin fuselage halves look amazing.

Painted and decaled. The only markings according to the photos was the national insignia and serial number. I did 223297, the first prototype and the only one that flew. It had maybe 40 hours on the airframe when they canceled further work, so outside of some exhaust stains, not much weathering.

I used Tamiya Lacquer "Olive Drab", which is a good match for "brown-base" OD-41 (their "Olive Drab 2" is a good match for "green-base OD-41"), and Gunze Mr. Color "Neutral Grey" for the airframe. The YZC is Mr. Color "Zinc Chromate Yellow Primer," which produces that strange color. All applied with Mr. Color Leveling thinner, but remember that the Tamiya paint does not need much thinner since it is pretty thin to begin with - in fact I only thinned it to be sure to get a very smooth surface.

The national insignias are smaller than standard P-47 markings. comparing with photos, I used P-51 stars and bars.

Dave up at Smith Brothers took one look at this when I brought it in this morning and exclaimed "What a monster!" A good description.

4 attached images. Click to enlarge.