Official FMS 1500mm P-47D Razorback Thread

[Eagle15]

Hi Eagle 15. I missed your question until I relooked over the posts. Regarding Bob Johnson and the red rudder, it is true that part of the time while he was flying his combat tours with the 61st FS, they did paint that squadron's rudders Red. The 62nd FS was painted Yellow, and the 63rd was Blue. This was in a very dynamic period where markings were changing rapidly. With Johnson, he was keen to stay in combat as long as possible, but with his being the top-scoring pilot in the 8th USAAF at the time, they weren't going to let him stay very long until they gave him the "hook" and send him home for a well-deserved rest.

They extended Johnson's combat tour for 10-15 flying hours with the understanding that when he flew that time, regardless of how successful he was shooting down the enemy, he was Going Home! At this time, Johnson was moved from his beloved 61st FS to the 62nd FS as they needed a replacement Operations Officer. That is why he transferred to the 62nd FS, thus his being given a new airplane, which he named PENROD and SAM, in honor of his crew chief and himself. The yellow rudders are what the 62nd FS were using until the end of the war, and that's why you see Penrod and Sam with the yellow tail. Maybe more info than you needed, but brevity has never been my long suit!

Cheers

Davegee

That explains it- thank you! I never knew he transferred to the 62nd; you learn something new every day! Thanks for clearing it up.
Good luck on your bubbletop conversion- it looks amazing!

[davegee]

quick question, I thought Robert Johnson served with the 61st, which had red cowls and red rudders. Was Pernod and Sam a borrowed p47 from the 62nd? Or perhaps I’m mistaken 😂

Also, where did you find photos of Pernod and Sam? I’ve looked for them but never found any. That’s why I chose to paint my p47 as lucky instead … lots of good reference photos for that.

Hi Eagle 15. I missed your question until I relooked over the posts. Regarding Bob Johnson and the red rudder, it is true that part of the time while he was flying his combat tours with the 61st FS, they did paint that squadron's rudders Red. The 62nd FS was painted Yellow, and the 63rd was Blue. This was in a very dynamic period where markings were changing rapidly. With Johnson, he was keen to stay in combat as long as possible, but with his being the top-scoring pilot in the 8th USAAF at the time, they weren't going to let him stay very long until they gave him the "hook" and send him home for a well-deserved rest.

They extended Johnson's combat tour twice for 25 flying hours with the understanding that when he flew that time, regardless of how successful he was shooting down the enemy, he was Going Home! At this time, Johnson was moved from his beloved 61st FS to the 62nd FS as they needed a replacement Operations Officer. That is why he transferred to the 62nd FS, thus his being given a new airplane, which he named PENROD and SAM, in honor of his crew chief and himself. The yellow rudders are what the 62nd FS were using until the end of the war, and that's why you see Penrod and Sam with the yellow tail. Maybe more info than you needed, but brevity has never been my long suit!

Cheers

Davegee

[davegee]

quick question, I thought Robert Johnson served with the 61st, which had red cowls and red rudders. Was Pernod and Sam a borrowed p47 from the 62nd? Or perhaps I’m mistaken 😂

Also, where did you find photos of Pernod and Sam? I’ve looked for them but never found any. That’s why I chose to paint my p47 as lucky instead … lots of good reference photos for that.

Hi Eagle 15. I missed your question until I relooked over the posts. Regarding Bob Johnson and the red rudder, it is true that part of the time while he was flying his combat tours with the 61st FS, they did paint that squadron's rudders Red. The 62nd FS was painted Yellow, and the 63rd was Blue. This was in a very dynamic period where markings were changing rapidly. With Johnson, he was keen to stay in combat as long as possible, but with his being the top-scoring pilot in the 8th USAAF at the time, they weren't going to let him stay very long until they gave him the "hook" and sent him home for a well-deserved rest.

They extended Johnson's combat tour for 10-15 flying hours with the understanding that when he flew that time, regardless of how successful he was shooting down the enemy, he was Going Home! At this time, Johnson was moved from his beloved 61st FS to the 62nd FS as they needed a replacement Operations Officer. That is why he transferred to the 62nd FS, thus his being given a new airplane, which he named PENROD and SAM, in honor of his crew chief and himself. The yellow rudders are what the 62nd FS were using until the end of the war, and that's why you see Penrod and Sam with the yellow tail. Maybe more info than you needed, but brevity has never been my long suit!

Cheers

Davegee

[davegee]

As I go along completiing this model, I do some detail items, when convenient. I just taped and painted the red boxes around the covers for the two fuselage fuel tanks . I have an order in from Callie for another nomenclature sheet that I'll add the placards that went on these covers.

[davegee]

Looking great. Dave.

Best, LB

Thanks,Steve. Packing the parts for the powered canopy into a fairly small airplane was a challenge. I have a framework of brass tubes that a smaller square tube rides in back and forth and the smaller framework is powered by the Actuonix linear servo, which works like a champ. I have or had a few "pinching" issues in that I had a small divergence from parallel due to the curve of the fuselage. It doesn't bind, but it puts the servo under a bit of a load in a few areas. Last night when I tried it, it worked great and the whole distance needed to be covered is about 2 inches or less. That is what I've seen in all the photos of the real ones on the ground or in the air. Of course, they had a pull handle they could operate to totally jettison the canopy if they needed to for bailout.

I liked your idea for your Corsair of slicing the fuselage precisely to open up space to put the working cowl flaps and the powered canopy. That was just a "bridge too far" for me, at this point, even for a foamie. My preference would have been to put the linear servo behind the cockpit and pull and push the canopy from behind to open and close it. But that was not a good option due to lack of space back there. Instead, I mounted the servo in a cutout on the bottom of the removable stock cockpit part of the model. This seems to work pretty well so far (I haven't gotten to the point of mounting the canopy on the brass rails yet!) and everything concerning the canopy is contained in this removable cockpit piece which is a modified OEM part by James to become a bubbletop versus the original razorback.

I figure another month of getting the airplane ready for the maiden. I am going to use the shorter stock prop for that first flight and one or two more before I put on the well tested FMS Corsair V3 prop and motor mount. I'm looking forward to that, especially since I have been flying this type FMS plane since they came out in 2016. Really a great plane and very accurate to the real thing, with some modifications!

Cheers

Dave

[Elbee]

Had a pretty productive day...

Looking great. Dave.

Best, LB

[davegee]

Had a pretty productinve day working on Hairless Joe today. I started prepping the plane for masking for the fuselage invasion stripes, and anyone who has done these knows it takes time and headwork to be sure you don't screw them up when you take off all the "bandages." In my case, I just screwed up one black invasion stripe that was a bit too narrow, but that was an easy fix.

I added a lot of nomenclature markings from Callie, need to order another set as mine are a hodgepodge of several previous models. Best to start out fresh with new ones.

I powered up the fuse and ran the elevator and rudder controls, motor, and the new attempt to power the canopy using the Acuontix linear servo mounted to the removable cockpit. I'm hopeful that I'll get it to pair up with the canopy when I get that far and it will work ok We'll see. Worst case scenario, I do have an extra canopy and if all else fails, I can at least temproarily use that until I sort out any problems with the Acuontix unit.

Also I plan on diving into the printed cockpit parts, most of which are already printed and painted. Danger Dan hit another home run painting my Col. Dave Schilling pilot figure, and I can't wait to see how the whole thing works out.

For the past many scale models, I have been using Tamiya spray rattle cans. The paint quality and colors are first rate and it is easy to do. I still use the air brush a lot on detail items.

I'll post a few pics from today.

Cheers

Davegee

[davegee]

Lootsa work. Looking good

thanks, Craig. Besides the very busy paint scheme, it is also tough getting accurate photos or drawings of this airplane while it was flying in 1944. It underwent both wings being replaced, the tail, the engine, and other parts of the airplane due to battle damage. Plus, almost no photos exist of the right side of the aircraft, just a few so some educated guessing has to be done to come up with the final look. I'll keep plugging along with the sources I have to try and do it justice.

Cheers

Davegee

[davegee]

Davegee,
The paint scheme is coming a long really well. Going to look great when finished and you know they fly fantastic. My wife would kill me if I painted on that floor, yours must be very understanding.
Best Regards, Rex

Thanks, Rex. This is my "dungeon"in the basement. The previous owners used this as a "command central" for manufacturing dog clothes of her own design. For years, I kept finding little sparkly sequins and the like in the carpet. I'm pretty good about keeping pant and stuff off the carpet, which is very old, but eventually we'll recarpet the basement but probably will use some sort of flooring in this room suitable for rc projects!

Cheers

Dave

[jetfool]

Davegee,
The paint scheme is coming a long really well. Going to look great when finished and you know they fly fantastic. My wife would kill me if I painted on that floor, yours must be very understanding.
Best Regards, Rex

[f4u ausie]

Lootsa work. Looking good

[davegee]

Made some progress on Hairless Joe today. Still working on the green camo bands and a ton of other things. I'm going to save the cockpit and canopy for last.

Here's how it looks as of quitting time today.

[davegee]

Thanks, Rex. The painting of this model is a challenge but a lot of fun. I think I’ll finish painting the fuse first, then take on trying to get the canopy power working and do the cockpit. I’m hoping it will turn out great, and fly well, too. I’ll routinely add updates on completing it. Thanks for your interest.

Sorry about your buddy losing his P-47. That part of our hobby SUCKS!

Cheers

davegee

[jetfool]

Davegee,
Great news that your canopies have arrived. Now the magic can begin. The paint job is looking great and the turtledeck looks smooth as the real one. Keep the photo's coming.
On a sad note my club member crashed his FMS P-47. He doesn't rebuild them like we do so when I see him next, I might have a new project for the que. Hoping vrosi has a mod. kit available for sale soon.
Keep the progress coming, Rex

[davegee]

Just started in on the very busy camo pattern on Hairless Joe. I use Tamiya rattlecan paints which are just wonderful!

Cheers

davegee

[davegee]

I received the two clear plastic canopies/windscreens that James made the plugs and then shipped to a vacuformer company in Michigan. They came out very nice and I have done some rough trimming of excess clear plastic from around the canopy. In the past couple of days, I've been working hard on the mechanism for powering the canopy so I can close or open it as desired. Doing this on a foamie is a lot tougher than ones I have done on larger gasser planes, but hopefully it will work out ok.

Right now I'm painting the basic RAF Ocean Grey color for the fuselage and will add the RAF Dark Green bands at a later time. The cockpit will also come around probably working on it next week, along with the powered canopy. Good to be working on it again with an eye towards finishing it up for test flights late May/early June if all works out.

I'll include a few in-progress shots, nothing great. One shot is taken underneath the cockpit and you can see part of a Actuonix linear servo that I am using to power the canopy movement open and closed. The canopy was a Nexa product that I bought to use as a testbed for fit. The actual canopy that James made is more scale showing all the neat curves that the real P-47 canopy had. Not much to see at this point.

Cheers

Davegee

[davegee]

quick question, I thought Robert Johnson served with the 61st, which had red cowls and red rudders. Was Pernod and Sam a borrowed p47 from the 62nd? Or perhaps I’m mistaken 😂

Also, where did you find photos of Pernod and Sam? I’ve looked for them but never found any. That’s why I chose to paint my p47 as lucky instead … lots of good reference photos for that.

See Dan's timely addition. Lucky as you probably know is the plane he got most of his 27 kills in during WWII. At the very tail end of his deployment, he made a deal to try and fly just a few more missions. He got a new P-47D that he named Penrod and Sam. Penrod was the last name of his beloved crew chief, and his (Johnson's) middle name was Samuel, and he frequently preferred to go by "Sam." People of that age were well aware of an adventure book of the same name, Penrod and Sam, about two young English lads who have an eye for adventure and fun. It was a very popular book for that generation.

The airplane Penrod and Sam was used very briefly by Johnson and he got the last two kills in that aircraft, bringing his total score to 27 Johnson was the first American airman in the ETO to beat WWI hero Eddie Rickenbacker's total of 26 kills. Not to be outdone, squadron mate Gabby Gabreski topped him by one kill, bringing his score to 28, one more than Johnson. That stood as the top score for the 8th USAAF in Europe for WWII.

Cheers

Davegee

[Grossman56]

https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=021f5a51eeaaf027&rlz=1C1GCEA_enUS12 05US1206&sxsrf=ANbL-n7BL2qvQdpNhK0CMqWNEmb7gzHPOg:1776622026508&udm=2& fbs=ADc_l-aN0CWEZBOHjofHoaMMDiKp9lEhFAN_4ain3HSNQWw-mMGVXS0bCMe2eDZOQ2MOTwmdSduEdP1lcK-3UDyorIbYrYypmw2ykxY_-AvoMYwpWYTdBoJYNvh3Rek9KUXPpGVXM6BjGd3lQgrhZ63pliW KAL1-vwzfsEifWdIoTacVzNsamgEgPldhJU2UL5ErZtN_2qxawCoH1k x3snOkOSgW5pIb_A&q=p47+penrod+and+sam&sa=X&ved=2ah UKEwje26jmwPqTAxWwLTQIHTs6OlMQtKgLegQIExAB&biw=136 0&bih=599&dpr=1
Great place to start

Grossman56
(Dangerous Dan)

[Eagle15]

Although stormy, I took my P-47 Penrod and Sam out to the field for a brief test of the EFlite bomb/tank drop mechanism. I had close to 10 kts of crosswind but I took off anyway, a non event. Flew several passes back and forth my position including a couple aileron rolls to be sure the drop tank would stay in place, and it did. Then I dropped it as it passed my position at about 100 feet altitude. It cleared immediately from the airplane and did a rapid end over end tumble, and into the dirt/sagebrush. No damage.

I think we're supposed to have some winds that might make me pause my final test of the bomb drop system using my other P-47D "Ole Cock." Once I do one or two tests next week with that one, I'll call it good and next time I get to fly Hairless Joe when it gets completed, I can feel comfortable that this drop tank mechanism will work just fine on it, too.

A pic after the test flight today with Penrod and Sam.

quick question, I thought Robert Johnson served with the 61st, which had red cowls and red rudders. Was Pernod and Sam a borrowed p47 from the 62nd? Or perhaps I’m mistaken 😂

Also, where did you find photos of Pernod and Sam? I’ve looked for them but never found any. That’s why I chose to paint my p47 as lucky instead … lots of good reference photos for that.

[davegee]

davegee

You might find this video helpful.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3WGrk4mkJtM

CARF P-47 Bubble-Top Canopy Slide Build 2026.

Fairly straight forward and nothing new in technique, but a nice reference IMHO.

Best, LB

Thanks, Elbee. Really helps to have a much larger airframe to get all this stuff to fit in! Since my fuselage doesn't have any openings to access the things like the linear servo, and since at this point I'd like to avoid cutting out a big hatch in the bottom of the fuse (subject to change if I need to) I'm going to look into putting my linear servo in the front of the canopy instead of pulling/pushing from the rear. There is more room and easier to access the servo if need be just removing the cockpit hatch that the servo is anchored to.

It is possible I might use the technique he used on his CARF with the servo behind the cockpit, but I'll play around with it once I get the canopy from James to see which way to go. For the time being, I plan on using a U-shaped wire that attaches the linear servo arm to each side of the sliding canopy in the front. I'll just have to play around with it to see which way works the best.

I had not thought of the idea of cutting a hatch in the bottom of the fuse like he has, but I'll keep that in my mind as one of the ways to do this.

Cheers

davegee