Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire They made America stronger

Yes indeed good friend.

Yep and I’ll bet that was an exhilarating flight.

P-47?

Whoa!

I had to magnify to see the hole in the prop.

Geeze.

I wonder if he had to get her rebalanced 😳

I'm old enough to remember them, yeah you bet they were good for America.

Is that Gabreski?

I bet Hamilton Standard made that prop, right here in Connecticut.

That engine probably needed a new crank.

Didn't the P47 have a tear drop shaped cowl with an a ir intake at the bottom?

Haven't seen a silver corsair but this cowl.......

By the looks of that hole i'd wager he had a 30 mm cannon firing kraut on his six..

Yes they did.

Yikes! Close shave.

Millville Army Airfield is a mile and a half from my home. It's where P-47 pilots were trained before being sent to Europe. Nice museum there.

Those planes were NOT built during a time when diversity, equity and inclusion were the main criteria for hiring engineers.

Yes this is a P-47 Thunderbolt. In this photo that’s a Curtis Electric prop which was actually used on more P-47’s than the Hamilton Standard prop even though the Hamilton standard was more common across all US WW2 aircraft.

Some P-47’s did get the Hamilton Standard, but most were delivered with the Curtis Electric.

As far as battle damage, there were numerous examples of P-47’s coming home safely from missions with cylinders shot off the Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engine. Showing big advantages of the air cooled Radial.

Mark in GA

Hindsight being 20/20, the P-47 is the aircraft that the USAAC should have kept in service following WW2 and put the P-51 Mustang out to pasture. Following WW2 and into Korea, the air-to-air fighter role was taken over by first Gen Jets. All of the piston fighters got regulated to ground attack. Given the ground attack role, the liquid cooled engine P-51 was a seriously bad choice to put our pilots in. Keeping the P-47 would have given our guys a MUCH better tool for the job (way heavier armament, bomb load, and rockets) plus the added crew safety of the radial engine.

To back up this statement, take a look at USAF loss rates in Korea where they were flying P-51 Mustangs, vs the Navy and Marine Corp on the same mission types flying R-2800 Radial engined Corsairs!!!

Mark in GA

I hope the pilot bought whatever passed for a lottery ticket back then. He was one lucky SOB

That Shell Hole looks way bigger than 30mm to me. A German 88 is about 3.5". That hole looks to me to be 5 Inch or so. Very close call, and lived to tell about it. That was one very well made propeller.

Bob R

No! We made those props in Alto Louisiana!!