Texas Flying Legends Museum – P-47D Restoration Update – Jan/Feb 2018

WarbirdsNews has just received the latest report from Chuck Cravens on the restoration of Texas Flying Legends Museum’s P-47D Thunderbolt 42-27609 at AirCorps Aviation in Bemidji, Minnesota. We thought our readers would be very interested to see how the project has progressed in the intervening two months since our last article on this important project. So without further ado, here it goes!

Texas Flying Legends P-47D-23RA – Jan/Feb 2018 Report

By Chuck Cravens

It has been almost exactly two years since we began working on the P-47 on the shop floor. A great deal of that time has been spent on fixture fabrication, disassembly of the veteran airframe, inspection, and parts manufacturing. The tail cone, horizontal stabilizer, and vertical stabilizer are pretty much finished, but this month an even more exciting part of the restoration began.

Fuselage Components:

Fuselage longerons and ribs went into the fixture, so for the first time the forward fuselage is beyond the parts fitting stage and is under active assembly.

These lower longerons form a compound curve as they extend back and they each have over 30 separate pieces that need to fit perfectly to make the assembled longeron conform to the Thunderbolt’s beautiful lines.

Tail Cone:

As the work on assembling the forward fuselage got underway, the finishing touches were put on the tail cone this month and the permanent riveting was done- other than a few that will be left off to facilitate later assembly. The whole assembly was removed from the vertical fixture and mounted on a horizontal stand that will make it easy to mate with the rest of the fuselage when that time comes.

And that’s all for this update. However, I would like to acknowledge a worthy project currently underway at the New Tech Institute in Evansville, Indiana; the city where the Republic Aviation Corporation had a factory that produced the very P-47D depicted in this article. The New Tech Institute is a Project Based School, and one of their teachers is currently involving his students in an effort to create a pair of replica P-47 Thunderbolts for display nearby. Teacher Pat Carter’s words below speak for themselves, but I am sure the group would welcome donations, or other forms of assistance to help with their efforts.

“New Tech Institute opened in 2010 and is a Project Based Learning school that has also been certified by the State of Indiana as a STEM High School. The school is located less than a half mile from the former Republic Aviation Plant in Evansville where over 5,000 men and women manufactured 6,242 P-47 Thunderbolts from 1942-1945. New Tech chose the Thunderbolt as our school mascot, and has been actively promoting the aircraft in its historic role such as working to develop displays for Evansville Wartime Museum and one of the projects currently being built is a 1/3 scale reproduction of a P-47…. Our school has been blessed to meet Lt. Allen Sanderson a member of the 57th Fighter Group (First in the Blue) who flew 118 missions in his ‘Lady Jane’. In talking with Lt. Sanderson, we asked if we could name this aircraft Lady Jane in his honor and he agreed. Our goal is to build two of these aircraft, one for display at our school and a second for the Evansville Wartime Museum.”

AirCorps Aviation decided to help the project, and felt the involved students, teachers, and consultants could benefit from membership in AirCorps Library which gives them access to the available engineering drawings, manuals, and other information on the P-47 and over 20 other warbirds. If you are also interested in supporting their project, please contact Pat Carter at 812-746-8796.

And that’s all for this month. WarbirdsNews wishes to thank AirCorps Aviation, Chuck Cravens (for the words) and John LaTourelle (for the images) for making this report possible! We look forwards to bringing more restoration reports on progress with this rare machine in the coming months.

Richard Mallory Allnutt (Chief Editor)

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Richard Mallory Allnutt's aviation passion ignited at the 1974 Farnborough Airshow. Raised in 1970s Britain, he was immersed in WWII aviation lore. Moving to Washington DC, he frequented the Smithsonian’s National Air & Space Museum, meeting aviation legends.

After grad school, Richard worked for Lockheed-Martin but stayed devoted to aviation, volunteering at museums and honing his photography skills. In 2013, he became the founding editor of Warbirds News, now Vintage Aviation News. With around 800 articles written, he focuses on supporting grassroots aviation groups.

Richard values the connections made in the aviation community and is proud to help grow Vintage Aviation News.

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