CAC Thundercat MK.II (San Tortan AF)

The Thundercat:

The CAC Thundercat originated during WW2 when australia's Commonwealth Aircraft Corporation was approached to provide a high-performance seaplane fighter/bomber to provide air support to Australia troops in the pacific. A floatplane was deemed necessary as airfields were often unavailable, and Australia did not posses Aircraft carriers. CAC had previously had great success modifying American designed aircraft to new missions, so it was decided to follow a similar path. CAC acquired the licence to the Republic Thunderbolt and set about altering it to a sea plane. Along the way it was decided that twin engines would be fitted. This was due to a shortage of the high-powered units intended for the Thunderbolt - Australian factories were unable to produce these in sufficient numbers, so two smaller engines were fitted. This was planned as a temporary measure with later production planes featuring the larger engines. In order to fit twin engines, a push/pull arrangement was settled on, with twin tail booms and twin floats. The design, christened the 'Thundercat' was rushed into production and rushed to the front. It was not an absolute success as the design featured an unfortunate number of compromises. Floatplanes were necessarily heavier and less maneuverable than conventional fighters, and the smaller power plants did not provide the performance which Aussie pilots wanted.
The MK.II was another story - by this time, powerplants were readily available, and, rather than re-engineer the plane again to go back to having only one engine, a pair were shoe-horned in. This made the Thundercat possibly the most obscenely over-engined fighter of the entire war. It was still marginally hampered by it's floats, but it made up for this with the immense amount of stores it could carry. The Thundercat had a distinguished military career, although by the time the MK.II reached the front it's role had been filled by American carrier groups and high-speed airfield building techniques.
In 1946, Australia had enormous stocks of war surplus, and a deal was struck with the tiny South American nation of San Torta, a tiny island nation consisting mostly of jungle, river, and silver mines along with the triangular eminence who's clearly visible geological strata had given the nation it's name. The San Tortan government had long since decided that building air fields in their dense jungle was a lost cause and taken to using sea planes. The Thundercat was ideal for their purposes, and they snapped up twenty-five surplus planes along with all the spares they could carry.
The San Tortan Thundercats, although hampered by chronic spare-parts shortages in later years served their country with distinction until they were retired from front line service in 1968. By this time the Thundercats were looking a bit worn, many of them were wearing non-matching propellers due to parts shortages, and almost every plane had the rear section of it's bubble canopy removed (The next generation San Tortan fighters featured Air-con, so the Pilots stopped removing their canopies after the Thundercat was retired).

The Model

The model is a combination of a pair of P-47D kits I got off eBay - one Academy and one old Hasegawa. I've always wanted to build a double ended version of one of the big, radial engined US fighters of WW2, and this seemed the perfect example. I'd also just picked up an Arado AR-196A float plane, and fitting floats seemed much easier that fitting scratchbuilt tricycle landing gear.

The majority of the model comes from the Academy kit - the Hasegawa was old and less well detailed. All it actually gave up was it's engine cowling. The tail booms are made from sprue with the horizontal tails from the Academy kit added to form a V-tail. The floats were built stock and only minor modification of their mounting struts were needed.

...now I have a spare P-47 (which I think will donate parts to a J'Deet tank) and an Arado 196A without floats (which I intend to fit with spatted wheels!) San Torta will fly again soon! Mark my words!