COBI P-47 Thunderbolt & Tank Trailer - Executive Edition Set 5736

COBI's P-47 Thunderbolt & Tank Trailer Executive Edition is a 1:32 set built from 567 blocks: the aircraft at 35 cm with a 40 cm wingspan in the historical "Little Chief" paint, plus a fuel tanker trailer. The propeller and ailerons move and the wheels turn on rubber tires. Two figures are included, a pilot and a mechanic, with a display stand and a nameplate. All markings are printed; no stickers.

The trailer is the interesting part

Most aircraft sets give you an aeroplane. This one gives you the thing that made the aeroplane usable, and it is worth understanding why COBI bothered.

A P-47 carried around 1,150 litres of fuel internally, and with drop tanks considerably more. A fighter group of 75 aircraft flying two missions a day needed something in the order of 150,000 litres daily, delivered to dispersed aircraft standing in fields, in a country where the fuel arrived by pipeline and rail and then had to travel the last kilometre somehow.

It travelled in trailers like this one, towed by a tractor, refuelling one aircraft at a time. The number of ground crew in a wartime fighter group outnumbered the pilots roughly ten to one, and almost all of them were doing work like this.

Building an airfield

The trailer is also a deliberate piece of range design. Set 3042 is the US Air Support Center — a 38 cm control tower at 1:35 — and the two are meant to go together: tower, refuelling trailer, aircraft, ground crew. It is the only way COBI's collection turns from a shelf of models into a place.

The aircraft

The largest single-engine fighter of the war, more than 15,000 built, and the forerunner of the modern multi-role fighter — it could escort bombers at 25,000 feet and then come down and attack trains. Crews called it the Jug.

In the COBI range

Set 5737 is the P-47 on its own at this scale, and 3042 the control tower.

Specifications

Pieces: 567 · Figures: 2, pilot and mechanic · Scale: 1:32 · Fuel trailer, display stand, nameplate · No stickers
Model dimensions: 35 × 40 × 12 cm (13.8 × 15.7 × 4.7 in)