Lifelike Decals

1/48 P-47D Thunderbolt Pt. 1 decal sheet

Product # 48-008

Product Article by Steve Bamford on Feb 17  2005

 

 

 

Lifelike Decals is a Decal company out of Japan.  The owners have been involved in  the researching of decal sheets for other companies for many years.  This latest decal sheet features three different P-47D's.  This is Part 1 of  a series dealing with the P-47D's.

The P-47D is one of the most famous US built fighters of WW2.  The Thunderbolt was a classic American design.....take a big engine....and build a plane around it.

This decal sheet provides a good variety artwork and markings as you can see in the instruction sheets.

Each plane has some sort of nose art or text.

The first plane is a P-47D-25-RE bubbletop, serial #42-26637 flown by Major General William Kepner, Commander of VIII FC in probably August 1944 at Hethel.  This aircraft has nose art of a blue bird of prey on a yellow background.  This plane is overall silver with light green on the top of the fuselage and nose cowl ring.  

The underside of the rear fuselage sports black and white D-Day stripes while the tail and horizontal tail flying surfaces have black stripes.  The D-Day stripes will have to be painted on.  The wheel, hubs are dark blue with white stars and the prop blades are black with yellow tips. 

Click on images below to see larger images

The second plane is a P-47D-10-RE Razorback, serial #42-75207 flown by Lt. Fred Christensen of the 65FS, 56FG in March 1944 at Halesworth.  This aircraft has nose art of a nude lady with full breasts on a blue background.  This plane is overall olive drab with grey undersurfaces and a white nose cowl ring.  The  horizontal tail flying surfaces have white stripes and the prop blades are black with yellow tips.  This plane has 12 German kill markings. 

The Third plane is a P-47D-27-RE bubbletop, serial #42-27260 of the 345FS in the 350FG in early 1945 in Pisa, Italy.  This aircraft has text nose art that reads "FLAK HAPPY".  This plane is overall silver with olive drab on the top of the fuselage and on some panels on the underside of the fuselage.  This plane has drop tanks and the prop blades are black with yellow tips.  On the tail is yellow lighting bolts with a black background.  This plane has a huge number of bomb mission markings. 

The quality of these decals is quite pleasing and of a high quality.  The carrier film in nicely limited around the decals.  The decals themselves are clearly printed and in perfect register with fine clear tiny stencils.  The colour of the decals appears solid enough to prevent paint showing through the decals.  Some decals (such as the noseart decals) come in 2 layers to ensure good coverage.  

You can purchase these decals either directly from Lifelike Decals at fax number is +81-3-5680-6733, and e-mail is lifelike@eos.ocn.ne.jp. or from HobbyLink Japan.  

Other shops that stock Life like Decals are *Hannants/UK, *Mister Kit/Italy, *Revi (publisher)/Czech Republic, *SkyGrid/Canada, *Roll Models/USA, *Great Models Webstore/USA, *FlightDecs/Canada, *Victory Models/USA
*M & Models/USA, *
Zed Hobbies/Australia, *AB &S Enterprise/Australia, *Desert Miniature/USA 

Decal Sheets

I highly recommend these decals to anyone interested in P-47s. 

I would like to thank Lifelike Decals for providing me with this review sample.

Steve  

Photos and text © by Steve Bamford