here’s what appears to be an independent review
BB (0001) by JanKees Blom, on Flickr
BB (0007) by JanKees Blom, on Flickr
BB (0003) by JanKees Blom, on Flickr
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Is it even on marketplace?
Yeah that’s very expensive for a little plane. Maybe a B17 or B29 that’s bigger and takes longer to make.
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My advice to AH is to do what is right here, and polish their product so that it more closely resembles what we thought we were buying.
It’ll never happen.
$33.00 USD is not “throw away” money for folks some of these days.
It’s certainly not for me, and Just Flight’s Avro Vulcan is a much better buy for the same price.
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Why is everybody expecting a P-47 to sound like a Hellcat or Corsair? The exhaust on those planes exits directly behind the cowl. The P-47’s exhaust is collected and routed all the way back through a single turbo then up front again. It sounds nothing like those planes.
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With the wastegates open (as they would be with the plane sitting on the ground) the exhaust does, indeed exit right under the cowl. Only when the wastegates are closed are the exhaust gasses vented to the tub and thence out the ventral exhaust.
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startup - seems like the exhaust exits pretty much everywhere..
and one more from a reliable source
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In the first video in the above post, that restoration doesn’t have the stock internal ducting or turbo, and instead it has regular exhaust stacks added at the front, so all of the exhaust gets dumped out of those exhaust stacks (non-stock).
In the second video, that restoration has all of the internal ducting and a working turbo. When that video was filmed, the waste-gates were open, so most of the exhaust poured out the waste-gates and a little flowed out the turbo hood.
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Just for the record, of the 12 flyable P-47’s in the world, only 5 of them have working turbochargers. Those being:
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P-47D-23-RA “Bonnie” 42-27609 (N4747D) owned by the Dakota Territory Air Museum
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P-47D-28-RA “Dottie Mae” 42-29150 (N47DM) owned by Allied Fighters
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P-47D-40-RA “Hun Hunter XVI” 44-90460 (N9246B) owned by Neal Melton
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P-47D-40-RA “78th FG” 45-49385 (N47DF) owned by Westpac Restorations
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P-47D-40-RA “Tallahassee Lassie” 45-49406 (N7159Z) owned by the Flying Heritage & Combat Armor Museum
The rest of those flying have creative methods of either rerouting the exhaust and/or bypassing the turbo.
Most of the P-47’s flying today completely bypass the turbocharger/intercooler section by having custom-made piping running directly from the chin air intake to the carburetor, as is the case on P-47D “Nellie B” (G-THUN), Planes of Fame’s P-47G (N3395G), P-47G “Snafu” (N47FG), P-47D “Tarheel Hal” (N4747P) and P-47D “Wicked Wabbit” (N647D). Most of these also have the exhaust directly dumped out the front via custom exhaust stacks in-place of the waste-gates.
In the case of P-47D “Nellie B” (G-THUN), the only P-47 flying outside of the US, it’s got a combination of custom exhaust stacks at the front as well as having the exhaust piped back to the rear fuselage where two big round ports were cut out of the sheet-metal, just forward of the turbo hood, and dumped downward through two short stacks.
In the case of John Schofner’s P-47D “Wicked Wabbit” (N647D), they didn’t want the exhaust exiting out the front as it would cause the aircraft to lose some of the distinct sound of a stock P-47, so the exhaust is directly piped back to/through a replica turbocharger serving simply as an exhaust nozzle. With that restoration, its R-2800 actually has a two-stage two-speed supercharger for high-altitude flying.
In the case of the restored P-47D “Hairless Joe” (N47DA), which also bypasses the turbo, it has a custom-made plenum in the aft fuselage with air-filters and a suction-operated alternate air source. Air flows back through the big central air intake from the chin, enters the plenum in the rear fuselage and makes a U-turn. At the top of the plenum are the two ducts which used to be mounted on the intercooler outlet. From that point the induction air flows forward through the original twin pressure pipes on either side of the cockpit to the carburetor. The exhaust is dumped out the front through custom-made exhaust stacks where the waste-gates used to be.
The C-series turbocharger (the type fitted to the P-47) tends to suffer from hydrogen embrittlement around the nozzle box/hot section after prolong operation, resulting in cracking. The only way they can be repaired is through an annealing process. From what I’ve heard from someone who restored and repaired several functioning turbochargers for the few P-47’s flying today with them, welding them is very difficult and usually doesn’t hold for long. All of the owners that operate P-47’s with working turbos tend to have at least one extra turbo on hand. They also require close inspection after each flight.
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this is correct and I should have noted that difference - it is why I linked both startup vids..
the third video is a deep dive yet is only one of four in the series by the author ‘Gregs airplanes and automobiles’ and I highly recommend his channel
Taking into account all the variations that @JohnnyT5000 outlined (good to meet up with you again, JT, by the way)… and some of the microphone variations in your posted recordings (the mic is more distant in the second one and there’s more wind/ambient noise)… there’s a heavy bass note present in both… maybe a combination of exhaust and the cylinder heads themselves) that’s completely lacking in the videos of the AH version.
If the soundset was a closer match for any of these recordings, I might be much more willing to consider picking it up, even taking other squawks into account.
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Guys I sent my “review” to Aeroplane Heaven, for what it’s worth. Maybe we’ll get at least some stuff fixed in a patch. There are some good points to this airplane, and for now, it is our only example of a P-47 for Flight Simulator. So I’m going to cross my fingers-
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I’m always amazed at your wealth of knowledge! Thank you for sharing it.
Just one thing, regarding Nellie B, you’re of course right about the custom exhaust to the rear fuselage, but I think the waste-gates aren’t sealed shut. At least they weren’t when I saw her at Hahnweide in 2019 it shot flames through them after touchdown.
It also had a very smokey (well normal for a R2800) startup
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Jan, why is the silver finish so dark? Is it something with the model???
Thank you, Stearman! I definitely see what you mean, and it was the same way when it was ‘No Guts No Glory’ as well (standard exhaust stacks at the front and piping running to more stacks at the rear fuselage). I’ll amend my post.
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Hi, Tyler from E19 here..
You’re correct; we did not do the audio on this. However, we did make the sounds for their RR Merlin-powered aircraft that are coming up, using some extremely high-quality recordings. We integrated the best we could with the aircraft packages we received. I think you all will enjoy the results!
As a fellow aviation and audio enthusiast, I was saddened to listen to Jay’s video. The apparent loops in the audio, very strange cockpit perspective sounds, and the lack of any dynamics or proximity-based sounds on the exterior are all things that are easily avoidable to the trained professional.
I don’t want to bash AH too much since AH is one of our clients, but I must admit my frustrations that seeing “specially authored WWise Hi-Fidelity sound package” as part of their feature list is very misleading.
Hopefully, they’ll see value in re-evaluating how seriously audio is taken in this community, as it is a major selling point.
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Engine sounds have never been their strong suit, though some of their addons are worse than others. Their Grumman F3F-2 is the only one I’ve actually recoiled at (of the addons I own from them).
The DC-3 is tolerable, if quiet, same for the Stratoliner and Ford Trimotor.
I’m really looking forward to the Merlin powered fleet! If the audio quality is anything near as good as your work on the Sabre or Chinook, they’ll be awesome!
I just wish AH would have gotten in contact with you about the P-47 sounds too =/
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Glad you like our work, it’s nice to see so much positive reception! The Sabre was one of my favorite projects to work on so far, and many others are coming down the pipe with other devs as well, such as Top Mach, Miltech’s future projects, IndiaFoxtEcho, and many, many more.
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That’s awesome! I’m looking forwards to the next projects =)
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