Dear friends and fellow airplane fanatics! Its good to be back in New Jersey! The job has kept me away from home and hobby way too long. I see that the forum is alive and well and most informative as always. I hope you will welcome a wayward modeler who has wandered back in from the cold. It was a great feeling to sit down at my work bench and heft the old x-acto knife again. After looking at sanderson 91s beautiful P-47D, I feel inspiration arising, and have pulled my Hasegawa 1/32nd thunderbolt from the stash, and plan to do Gabreskis machine as depicted on the box art. Normally I am not a real obsessive rivet counter, but this kit is so nice that wish to do it ( and its legendary pilot) justice. My research tells me that the final version of the Jug that Gabreski flew before his capture was the P-47-25 RE. Was this version the last to have the corrugated floor? Even though the kit is depicted as Gabreskis plane, the floor is of the P-47-30 variety meaning it is flat without ribbing. This may seem like true nit picking, but I really do want to get this one right. If this plane did have the ribbed floor does the aftermarket have a suitable replacement (probably another dumb question). Thanks for any help in advance! Its good to be back.
His last P-47 would indeed seem to be a P-47D-25 (42-26418) & would have had a corrugated floor, the flooring changed somewhere in P-47D-27 production.
Avionix/blackbox seem to do what you are looking for, I think BLC32047 is correct;
http://www.brookhursthobbies.com/Product-Detail.cfm?P=BLC32047&N=50
http://scottsmodels.tripod.com/p-47d_thunderbolt.htm
http://www.internetmodeler.com/2007/january/new-releases/decal_p47.php
Thanks a lot, Milairjunkie! The links you listed proved most helpful and interesting. That resin cockpit shown on one of the links is really amazing- unfortunately it costs more than the hasegawa kit it is intended for! It seems that the P-47-27 was indeed the first to feature a flat cockpit floor, somewhere halfway through that production block. Thanks again
No Problem & glad to be of some help.
It might be worth keeping an eye on Ebay for a while to see if it appears there.