P-47N

The Thunderbolt series began in June 1940, when the United States Army Air Corps issued a requirement for a new lightweight fighter design. The most powerful engine at the time, the 2,000 horsepower Pratt & Whitney R-2800-21 Double Wasp 18-cylinder two-row radial, was selected as the starting piece of the P-47 Thunderbolt series; because it was the best engine for achieving the performance and load-carrying demands required by the USAAC. Adapting this massive engine to power a fighter aircraft required a great feat of engineering, but Alexander Kartveli and his team knew that without it, their design could not possibly meet the performance expectations that the USAAC required. A four-bladed 12ft-diameter propeller had to be used to harness the power generated by the R-2800, and Kartveli produced and efficient supercharging duct system that offered the least interrupted airflow, using an unorthodox method of designing this feature first and then building up the fuselage around it. The engine’s huge turbosupercharger was stored internally in the rear fuselage, with the large intake for the air duct mounted beneath the power-plant, together with the oil coolers. Kartveli designed a telescopic landing gear that was nice inches shorter when retracted than when extended so as to make room for the win installation of no fewer than eight .50in machine guns and their ammunition, which when fired imposed immense stress on the aircraft that had to be taken into consideration.

Top Speed: 626kph

The final production variant, the N-1-RE (550 built) saw the P-47D-27-RE fuselage, fitted with an R-2800-57 engine and CH-5 turbosupercharger driving a Curtiss Electric 13ft paddle-blade propeller, combined with a new long-span wing 18in greater in span and 22 sq ft larger in area. The latter also incorporated larger ailerons and square-cut tips. Numerous detail design changes were also incorporated, and extra fuel in the wings gave a total of 186 US gallons - single 300 US gallon drop tanks could be carried beneath each wing. A further 550 N-5-REs followed, and these were similar to the N-1-REs bar the addition of rocket launchers, AN/APS-13 tail warning radar and provision for a General Electric C-1 autopilot. The N-15-RE (200 built) was similar to the N-1-RE except for the addition of an S-1 bomb rack and K-14A/B gunsight. The N-20-RE (200 built) was also similar to the N-1-RE, bar a new radio, as was the N-20-RA (149 built) except for minor cockpit changes. The N25-RE (167 built) was the final production version, and this too was similar to the N-1-RE except for the addition of autopilot, a new cockpit floor and strengthened ailerons to deflect rocket blasts.