I have been fascinated with heavy metal birds since I can remember.

When the Great Planes P-47 came up for review I put my name in the hat immediately. I have owned many warbirds in my modeling career and have found that the designs have gotten easier to fly with advances in building materials and techniques. The Great Planes P-47 is designed with electric power as an option, not an afterthought. That, along with its smaller size, further interested me. Having experienced some of the new Great Planes offerings, I figured this would be the perfect chance to review a non-foam warbird that could also be flown as an everyday aircraft. An opportunity that proved to be right on the money!

With the battery fully charged (12.61 volts and 62 degrees), I hooked up my trusty E-meter and applied full throttle. I was seeing 389 watts at 34.59 amps (When the battery warms up, I expect to see a little more power). The voltage of the battery at this power level was 11.25 volts. That's 138.3 watts per pound. With that kind of power I expected to see very spirited flight!

Front view of the motor and cowl installation

Holes in the leading edge of the wing for the simulated guns

"Guns", prop, and included aluminum prop hub

With the addition of a tail wheel, The P-47 taxied out to the runway with little problem. The wind was blowing steady down the runway with gusts to 12mph. I slowly advanced the throttle in preparation for the takeoff run. The plane started to pull a little left so I fed in some right rudder. I advanced the throttle again and the tail started to lift off the ground. With the tail up the plane was more easily controlled on the ground. I steered the P-47 straight down the runway and fed in some up elevator until it lifted off. The P-47 was pulling slightly left as I gained altitude. I made a banked left turn and then prepared for the rest of the flight. The P-47 needed a couple of clicks of right aileron and a couple of clicks of down elevator to fly level. I found the control throws as recommended in the manual to be just about perfect. Subsequent takeoffs have proven to be a non event as long as I ease into the throttle on the takeoff run and use some corrective rudder. If I advance the throttle too fast the P-47 has a tendency to pull left or try to ground loop.

Landing the P-47 the first time proved to be a little frustrating to someone who likes to grease in their landings. I am not saying I always do, I just like to! The P-47 settles into the landing pattern just fine. Actually, it just about settles itself. I just kept adding a little elevator as I pulled back on the throttle. Here is where the first minor issue came into play. As I was reducing the throttle it cut completely out at about 20% and the plane dropped in altitude. This was not what I was hoping for so I advanced the throttle to get the prop spinning again. Unfortunately, the point at which it cut back in was bit too high so I had to cycle the motor on and off to try to get my desired landing speed. I set the P-47 down on the runway a little to fast and it bounced slightly a handful of times before settling on the runway. The taxi back to the pits was uneventful, except for the comments from the peanut gallery about my "four landings in one flight".

I have had mixed success with subsequent landings, although none have been really bad. The P-47 has a tendency to bounce on landing (pavement) if you try to finesse it in on three points. I have had slightly more success getting it down on the mains and then bleeding off speed until the tail drops. Getting a reliable slow idle from the speed controller (I now advance the throttle sub-trim before taking off) proved to be a big help in smoothing out the landings as well.

The P-47 truly shines once it is in the air. It tracks very well with limited tail waggle even in a fairly stiff breeze. The aircraft responds positively to control inputs. The recommended C.G. feels spot on. Turns are easily accomplished with out the need to add any rudder input. The P-47 does not "feel" light on the sticks but it definitely doesn't feel heavy either. During a stall test on low rate, I was amazed that the P-47 would not stall, it just mushed ahead slowly. On high rates it stalled at an incredibly slow speed and fell off to the left gently. I must say I felt very comfortable with the flight characteristics in a very short time.

When I was comfortable with the airframe, I decided to try some basic aerobatics. Some of the maneuvers I tried were not scale, but the airframe is so responsive that I wanted to try many different things. First up, a reverse half cuban eight, which was accomplished with ease. The P-47 has plenty of power to pull through the maneuver gracefully. Next, I tried a few aileron rolls. The rolls are fairly axial but the P-47 did require some down elevator while inverted to keep it from dropping in altitude. When I switched over to high rates, elevator input was not needed during the roll. After a turn around at the end of the field, I went to full throttle and tried a knife edge pass. I realize this is not an Extra, and it showed it by the way it performed the maneuver, but even though it was losing altitude quickly, I was surprised at how little roll coupling there was during the pass. I decided to slow the P-47 down a bit and try a slow roll and a slow pass at show center. The Slow roll was very graceful but it needs some corrective input to keep it level, although much less than expected. I was surprised at how slow the P-47 will fly while still remaining completely controllable with no sign of stalling.

After trying a few slower maneuvers I wanted to crank it back up again. I tried some climbing rolls, inverted flight, point rolls, snap rolls, and a few stall turns. The P-47 handled everything with ease. Sustained inverted flight is rather easy with the P-47 but it does take a fair amount of down elevator to keep it level. The point rolls are also easily accomplished. The P-47 responds crisply when input is given to stop the roll at the "points". Snap rolls are fairly precise, but it does have a slight tendency to over rotate although a bit less than expected for a warbird. Even though the knife edge didn't go too well, as expected, the rudder was surprisingly effective when performing stall turns. The turns were fairly precise with very little tail wagging after exiting the maneuver. All of the maneuvers I wrote about above were performed during my maiden flight, which should give you some indication of how extremely comfortable I was flying this airframe!

Reviewed by Kevin
Read the full article here.

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