Can we talk about how badass this plane is?

Yeah, we can.
Any airplane pilots prefer to crash land in rather than jump out is an off the scale badass in my book.
Plus all the other stuff - one of the earliest bubble canopies, great cockpit layout, excellent armament, and all the interesting tech behind the making of such a huge fighter plane by WW2 standards.

A shame it had a very bumpy beginning, mostly due to the need for better propeller blades to put down all that power - it was like a NASCAR on street tires at first. Oh and the short range.
But damn if it isn't the most American plane of the war.

>>31987500
Is the double wasp engine just as tough?

>>31987464

Looks ugly though. Too fat and generic looking. Doesn't look like a fearsome or graceful plane, no matter how good it is.

>>31987516
Just as tough as the plane, you mean?
I'm no engineer but afaik radials are generally tough.
It's air cooled so whatever happens the engine will have cooling - since even a little piece of sharpnel could knock out your cooling, this is a big thing.
Then it's also a big engine, but a short one compared to inline or V engines, which means that anyone shooting at you from the bottom (like AAA would) is going to have a harder time directly hitting your engine. It does make it a easier target for frontal fire, but it's not that big of a deal I guess.

One big drawback was that it wasn't a cheap plane to build and that's also because the turbocharger arrangement is behind the pilot, so that adds a lot of complexity to the thing, plus at the time heat resistant metals for turbochargers were harder and expensive to make, to the point that countries like Germany always had troubles with them.

I think the double wasp was used for decades in detuned form for postwar usage, and it's still used today. That says something about reliability.

>>31987612
Thats why it's so cool.
Big.
Fat.
Ugly.
And mean as hell.

>>31987636
Yeah just how generally tough it is

>>31987641
>>31987612
I honestly like how it looks once in the air. It's like a seal: slow and clumsy on land, fast and agile in the sea. (in the air, for the P-47)
It has nice rounded proportions, it doesn't just look fat.

>>31987636
What about its high altitude performance

>>31987636
Also worth noting that by the design of the engine, radials can run with damaged cylinders while inlines can't

>>31987684
I think it looks straight up badass

>>31987687
Again I'm no engineer, just referencing what I remember from googling since I always liked the plane.

It's very good afaik, early versions were tuned just for high altitude work, but it needed a redesigned set of paddle bladed propellers to put down any power at medium-low altitude. That's why early P-47's got absolutely decimated by the Germans, they could just climb off and engage slower P-47's that had no way to build their energy up.
It always was a better diver than German planes, though, the sturdy frame could handle a lot of airspeed.

>>31987612
THICC
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File: P-47 ground strike.jpg (48KB, 700x412px) Image search: [Google]

48KB, 700x412px

What's that? Flew the plane into the fucking ground?

Naw it's fine just fly back to base it's fine.