Word: p47
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Thunderbolt (Republic P-47). First fought in the European Theater only a few months ago on a large scale, the turbosupercharged P47 is a hard-hitting, high-altitude specialist. Heavy as the familiar Ford trimotor, it has been used almost exclusively as a long-range bomber escort (as at Emden). Bombers run into comparatively little trouble when P-475 are escorting. The P-475 themselves, against German fighters, knocked down 5.8 German aircraft to every P47 that was lost in one recent month. Its overall ratio, from a fairly unimpressive start...
...P47 is the only Army super-powered single-engined fighter yet in service. The Navy...
Johnson turned his plane over, flipped out, parachuted safely to the ground. The P47 dived harmlessly, disappeared in a great splash of sea water...
...tricky business-one reason why the plane was delayed in reaching combat. There is no room for an instructor in the cockpit. The pilot is on his own in mastering speeds of 420-plus m.p.h., learning how to pull out of 680-m.p.h. power dives that can hurtle the P47 to safety when its ammunition is exhausted. In early days, many a student pilot forgot that a Thunderbolt can dive a mile in six screeching seconds, needs thousands of feet for the simplest maneuvers...
More to Come. Although the P47 is now being turned out in quantity, the plane still has a long way to fly before the Army will be wholly satisfied. That is one reason why other theaters have yet to report the Thunderbolt in action. It is not as good at dog-fighting as the Spitfire IX, its range is limited, its rate of climb is slow. But engineers are already eying the huge air-cooled motor for an added 300- 400 h.p., to get both faster climb and top speeds not far below 500 m.p.h. If that happens, says...