THUNDERBOLT - P-47D

This Aircraft: Manufactured by Republic Aviation in Evansville, Indiana, and delivered to the USAAF on June 27, 1945. It was placed in storage until March, 1948, when it was assigned to an Air National Guard squadron. FHC’s Thunderbolt is painted in the colors of the “Tallahassee Lassie,“ flown by Seattle-born Colonel Ralph C. Jenkins. He led the 510th Fighter Squadron, initially in England and later all the way through Europe to Germany at the end of WWII. Colonel Jenkins may be the pilot who attacked the staff car of Field Marshall Erwin Rommel, wounding the German commander. While the size of the average man stayed about the same, the size of the average fighter plane, and its cockpit, increased during World War II. This image shows the spacious working space in the Flying Heritage Collection’s P-47 Thunderbolt. It’s not surprising that the interior of America’s biggest single engine fighter of the war would have the largest cockpit too. It was so commodious, in fact, that it caused p