Road to Top Gun — Greg Wright — Bubbletop P-47 Thunderbolt

Road to Top Gun — Greg Wright — Bubbletop P-47 Thunderbolt

We just heard from our buddy Greg Wright and he says he will be competing at Top Gun for his second year. The plane he has decided to bring (for the Sportsman class), is his CARF-Models-P-47 Thunderbolt with Bubble canopy. He built the plane over the winter two years ago and also entered it in the 2014 Toledo show where his amazing “Jug” get a lot of attention. He then went to the Joe Nall giant scale event for the aircraft’s first public “on the flightline” showing and over the nine day event Greg flew the P-47 12 times.

Road to Top Gun -- Greg Wright -- Bubbletop P-47 Thunderbolt - RC Scale Airplane Competition

The plane is built using standard construction technics for a all composite type plane so here are some of the features that are on the plane. the plane has the standard 4 controls of Elevator, Ailerons, rudder, throttle. It also has built in to it a set of scale fowler flaps. the landing gear are a set of Sierra Giant Scale retracts along with a set of scale wheels. It is powered by a Moki 5-Cylinder gas radial 4stroke engine. I have even put quite a bit of extra detail into the plane.

Road to Top Gun -- Greg Wright -- Bubbletop P-47 Thunderbolt - RC Scale Airplane Competition

Over the course of  three months Greg installed about 3000  #1 screws into the appropriate scale locations on the removable panels of the real plane. This was done before he painted the whole plane. This winter he felt that the plane was just missing some details so he went back over the entire plane and applied over 60,000 vinyl rivets to the surface of the plane. Then went back and with a fine tip bristle brush and hand painted over the top of each rivet to make them look more authentic.

Road to Top Gun -- Greg Wright -- Bubbletop P-47 Thunderbolt - RC Scale Airplane Competition

 

Updated: March 4, 2015 — 2:36 PM

10 Comments

  1. Good luck Greg!!

  2. Greg ! Tremendous effort and well worth the labor. Haven’t seen any Luftwaft, lately ; however, U.S. might,
    decide, to clean-up ISIS, around the Gulf. A squadron of Thunderbolts, might be the answer. If, so, I’ll
    join, the squadron, with a wing of J-3 Cubs. That way, you’ll have recon, as well as, combat. Low level
    smoke bombs, would give ISIS, more difficulty and with added, tear gas, the P-47/ J-3 Combat could be,
    as historic, as the ” Tokyo Raid “. Who knows, maybe a few Mitchell B-25’s could round out, the show.
    Anyway, enough, of my pipe dreams, minus reefer madness,.hope to meet you and the Thunderbolt,
    someday, soon.

  3. Beautiful Jug. Takes a lot of tim to build some like this, My hats off to you

  4. That is such a beutiful bird one day I may have a carf I know Greg worked really hard on that bird it inspired me to redo my TF Tar Heel . I saw it on NASA Scale on face book . Good luck at top gun.

  5. Great dedication and workmanship.

  6. I love you’re bird. I just got me a kit. Im trying decide what theem to go with. I love you’re. If u can email me some good ideas please. I need help to design my jug.

  7. This message is for Debra, I receive the digital and the magazine, but I can not get into the any thing in the digital
    because it keeps asking for a password and the one I put in does not work. I called the other day and was told I do not need a password. would you please take care of this.
    Thank You
    Hank McCabe

  8. A photo of the pilots wife/girlfriend/children would be a great addition for a scale model of this calibre.
    Beautiful workmanship. Well done, Greg.

    1. Manne Hurlbatt,
      I don’t have a wife or any kids. So for me to include them would be impossible.

      1. Manne Hurlbatt,
        I don’t have a wife/ Girl friend or any kids. So for me to include them would be impossible.

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