As a follow-up to our previous articles about the Curtiss-built P-47G Thunderbolt (which you can find HERE and HERE), we at Vintage Aviation News are pleased to report that on September 13, P-47G 42-25254 made its first flight in over a year since the aircraft underwent an extensive overhaul. With a successful flight under its belt, the Chino, CA-based museum’s Thunderbolt is now poised to once again fly alongside other Planes of Fame aircraft at local events and at flight demonstrations held at the museum every First Saturday of the month.
Since our last article in April 2025, mechanics at Planes of Fame have been hard at work rewiring the P-47’s electrical systems, and at the beginning of September, they reinstalled the overhauled propeller. While most P-47s rolled off the assembly line in WWII with Curtiss Electric propellers, the museum has been using Hamilton Standard propellers on P-47G 42-25254 since the 1980s because ease of maintenance and greater supply of spare parts for the Hamilton Standard as opposed to the Curtiss Electric. By September 6, the first engine runs and taxi tests had been successfully completed, with minor tweaks being done on the engine and the airframe wherever needed.
On the afternoon of September 13, with the museum hosting its annual barbecue for museum members, another set of engine runs was carried out. Planes of Fame president Steve Hinton kept a close eye on the output of the P-47’s Pratt & Whitney R-2800 Double Wasp radial engine as his son Steven Hinton (known within the Planes of Fame community as Stevo) was at the controls. After some discussion, it was decided that the museum’s Thunderbolt was at last ready to fly. Steven Hinton taxied the “Jug” out from the museum to the run-up area and, with all systems functioning, took off into the skies above Chino. Steven made a few passes over the Planes of Fame, just long enough to see and feel that everything was in working order, then brought the P-47 back to earth, making a textbook test flight.
Both Steve and Steven Hinton have reported that all went according to plan and that they will be conducting more flight tests in the coming weeks. If all goes well, the Planes of Fame’s P-47G Thunderbolt will be back on the flight schedule for future events at the museum and will likely fly at one of the museum’s monthly flight demonstrations next year, as well as the next Wings, Tracks and Wings event held at the museum on the first weekend of May. The Planes of Fame’s P-47G Thunderbolt is currently one of only three airworthy “Razorback” P-47 Thunderbolts, with the others being Charles Somers’ P-47G 42-25068 “Snafu” and P-47D-23-RA Thunderbolt “Bonnie”, which was beautifully rebuilt by Aircorps Aviation for the Dakota Territory Air Museum in Minot, North Dakota.
