Republic P-47D Thunderbolt (226671)  [@ RAF Duxford]

One of the truly great fighter aircraft of all time! The largest and heaviest [7 tons] single-seater piston-engined fighter in history and the most numerous American fighter ever produced. Nicknamed the "Jug" it was a hugely successful high altitude escort and a formidable ground attack aircraft. It could take almost as much damage as it could hand out, quickly establishing a reputation for allowing pilots to walk away from all but the most horrendous crashes and absorbing extraordinary amounts of battle damage, hence its success in the ground attack role.

226671 is the only airworthy example in Europe of a Republic P47-D Thunderbolt - "No Guts No Glory". These colours represent the aircraft flown from Duxford in 1944 by the Commanding Officer of the 78th Fighter Group's 82nd Fighter Squadron, Major Ben Mayo . Built in 1945, it served briefly in the US Army Air Force before serving with the Peruvian Air Force.

The Republic P-47 Thunderbolt represented the culmination of a line of aircraft which had its origin in two 1936 designs, the Seversky P-35 and P-43. The original XP-47 and XP-47A prototypes were designed around the Allison engine, but designer Alexander Kartveli realized that this powerplant, with its mediocre performance at high altitude, would not be suitable. He therefore drew up an alternative design around the most powerful engine then available, the new 2000hp Pratt & Whitney Double Wasp radial. The new proposal was submitted in June 1940 as the XP-47B and was immediately accepted, orders being placed in September for 171 production P-47Bs and 602 P-47Cs. The two were basically similar, except that the P-47C had a slightly longer fuselage to improve stability. The XP-47B flew for the first time on 6 May 1941. In June 1942 the 56th Fighter Group began to rearm with the P-47 and in December 1942 to January 1943 it deployed to England. Flying its first combat mission, a fighter sweep over St Omer, on 13^th April 1943.

Republic P-47D Thunderbolt (226413)  [@ RAF Duxford]

Following a complete restoration in the mid 1990's at Duxford 226413 is displayed in the colours of 42-26413 "Oregan's Britannia'.

In all, 12,602 P-47Ds were built by Republic in four batches, a further 354 being built by Curtiss-Wright as P-47Gs. The RAF acquired 354 early-model P-47Ds as the Thunderbolt I, while a further 590 later model P-47Ds were supplied as the Thunderbolt II. All the RAF’s Thunderbolts were assigned to squadrons in South-East Asia Command (India and Burma), where they replaced the Hawker Hurricane in the ground-attack role.

Republic P-47D (45-492495)  [@ RAF Hendon]

45-492495 did not serve with the RAF and saw no operational service. It flew with the US National Guards and Yugoslav Air Force before arriving at RAF Cosford in 1986. It is painted in the markings of "KL216", a Thunderbolt II, of RAF 30 Squadron as a tribute to RAF Thunderbolt units in the Far East.

The next production version was the P-47M, 130 being completed with the 2800hp R-2800-57 engine. It was built specifically to help combat the V1 flying bomb attacks on Britain. The last variant was the P-47N, a very long-range escort and fighter-bomber, of which Republic built 1816. Overall P-47 production, which ended in December 1945, was 15,660 aircraft.