Reviews : Tamiya P-47D Bubbletop Fighter Aircraft WWII

The Tamiya 1/48 Republic P-47D Bubbletop model kit, originally released in 2003 is the best kit of this subject on the market. Although Miniart has recently released a highly rated P-47D-25 kit, I consider this Tamiya kit to be better engineered and easier to build than Miniart's kit. After reviewing some YouTube build videos of the Miniart 1/48 P-47D Bubbletop kit, I observed builders having to fill seam lines and re-scribe panel lines during the build process of that kit. I agree with kit reviewers that the Miniart kit has superior rivet detail, radial engine detail and excellent cockpit detail. However, the Miniart Kit does not have a pilot figure. Some reviewers also noted that the clear canopy parts on the Miniart Kit were not as clear and distortion free as the Tamiya 1/48 P-47D model kit. I also viewed YouTube videos of the 1/48 P-47D-25 model kits produced by Hasegawa, Revell, Academy and Hobbyboss and the Tamiya Kit appeared to have better parts fit, detail and engineering than those other brands. I also preferred the paint scheme out of the box options provided by the Tamiya kit over other P-47D-25 kits. The only after market product I used for this build was the Eduard EX010 canopy/wheel mask set designed for this Tamiya 1/48 P-47D-25 kit. Although both of the two paint schemes provided in the kit were nice, I opted to select the more challenging option A paint scheme for Lt. Col. Benjamin Mayo, 84th FS, 78th FG, Duxford Air Base, 1944. This scheme had the checkerboard painted radial engine cowling and underwing D-Day Invasion stripes. I decided to use the fuel tank and bombs configuration shown on the box art. Although the kit instructions did not provide color diagrams for the paint schemes, they were easy to follow and clearly showed what parts to use for option A as opposed to option B. In traditional fashion, the builder is initially instructed to build up the cockpit. If the builder prefers not to install the provided pilot figure than a seatbelt decal is provided in this kit. I painted and installed the pilot figure for my build. For the cockpit interior, I airbrushed the floor, seat and side panels with Vallejo Model Air 71.010 Interior Green. Following the instructions carefully, I used Anita's All Purpose Acrylic 302278 Black to paint the instruments in the cockpit areas. The kit provided a instrument panel decal which I put on using Micro Sol. The pilot figure was painted up and put aside for later installation. Landing gear bay compartment interior surfaces were painted with Vallejo Model Color 70.954 Yellow Green. To ensure proper alignment of the fuselage halves, I built up the halves by first gluing the vertical tail fin parts to the main fuselage parts before gluing the fuselage halves together. The builder is cautioned to carefully sandwich the fuselage halves together due to the main wing spars that must be carefully aligned to the slots on the fuselage halves. The cockpit tub also requires careful installation and alignment. Following cockpit and fuselage assembly, step four of the instructions directs the builder to paint and assemble the engine and install it in its engine cowl. The builder needs to carefully paint the engine parts and cowl interior in step four of the instructions. Tail plane and main wing assembly is straight forward and is shown clearly in steps five through seven. Step eight shows assembly of main and tail gear and flap installation. Step nine provides the builder with the option for installing the main wing flaps in the level or down position. Step eleven specifies the correct propeller type to used for option A as opposed to option B. Step twelve shows the pilot, canopy/windscreen, propeller installation. Step thirteen illustrates armaments and fuel tank assembly. Step fourteen and Step fifteen cover load out options depending upon whether option A or option B is selected by the builder. As both paint schemes were a bare metal finish, I first primered the aircraft fuselage, main wing and tail plane assembly with Anita's All Purpose Acrylic Black 302278. After 45 minutes, I then put several light coats of Ceramcoat Metallic Silver 02603 on, for the bare metal finish topcoat. I masked off the upper fuselage surfaces using Tamiya Masking tape to paint these upper non-glare fuselage surfaces using Vallejo Model Air 71.043 Olive Drab. This was followed up with Johnson's Floorwax (i.e. Future) as the initial seal coat. After 45 minutes of drying time, I proceeded to install all of the decals. This was the most tedious phase of the build as there were many stencil markings on this aircraft. For this kit, I recommend installing the decals in numerical order. As the decals were thick in contour, copious amounts of Microsol and Microset were used to get them to conform to the surfaces of the model. Following decal installation, I airbrushed another protective seal coat of Johnson's Floor Wax over the decals. I used a combination of brush painting and airbrush painting for this model. My airbrush is an Iwata HP-C Plus set at 20 psi with a 0.3 mm needle. I used Tamiya Extra Thin and Tamiya Regular formula glues. I also used Gorilla Superglue when necessary. Micro Crystal Kleer was used for the clear canopy and windscreen installation. Tamiya Black Panel liner was used as a filter and pinwash on this model followed by some light weathering with Tamiya Weathermaster powder pigments for exhaust and gun port residue stains. Although this model could be successfully completed by an entry level model builder, intermediate to advanced fine scale modelers with airbrushing and decal installation skills are more likely to achieve excellent results.

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.

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.

This is one of my favorite aircraft from WWII, and I have built the Revell kit before. The reason I bring up the Revell kit is this one from Tamiya is superior in almost every way possible. No over flash and parts come off their sprues cleanly with little if any cleanup required. The fit is also amazing, almost too perfect to believe and no puttying required. One of the key differences and surprisingly so, was parts on leading edge surfaces such as machine guns and radio masts were not molded in place but needed to be fitted. I was very impressed with that one little feature, as in handling wings and fusilage on other kits , protruding molded pieces like these can often be damaged or get broken off. The advantage of fitting them is that this can be done last after all the handling has been done and that is exactly how it should be. Once complete and painted this kit is remarkably life like, and the detail really does add to the realism. You will enjoy building this kit and enjoy the finished result even more.

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.

This kit is very well organized with plenty of configuration options for the builder to choose from. The checkerboard on the nose cowling is a nice option. This is a quality thunderbolt kit and one of the best Thunderbolt kits out there.

builds into a great model. parts went together flawlessy. one caution, if you are going to use invasion stripes, do not put your landing gear on ,or your bomb/ drop tank pylon on. i did and regretted it.

Very nice kit. Good price. Excellent build kit with time appropriate decals. Good WWII model for my collection.

Another winner from Tamiya. Everything went together like a dream. This is a fun kit to put together