Moulded in their usual hard, pale grey styrene, the kit sports sharp recessed panel lines and a good fit of parts. The cockpit consists of a floor, seat, backplate, instrument panel and stick, with some excellent sidewall detail moulded inside the fuselage halves. The cowl is supplied in one-piece and inside there is a two-part engine and separate airscoop. Both the 12' Curtiss Electric and the 13' Hamilton Standard props are included.

The wings are moulded in separate left and right halves, so care is needed in setting the dihedral, but the fit is tight, needing just a smidgen of filler Gunze's Mr Surfacer is ideal - to reduce a hairline gap on the underside. Academy moulded the wing tips and control surfaces to the upper halves to get a sharp trailing edge, a time-honoured approach that works. The wheel wells are boxed in and are suitably detailed for the scale. The undercarriage doors are also well moulded, especially those for the tail wheel which are commendably thin. Like their 1:48 Thunderbolt kits, Academy supply a good selection of underwing stores in the shape of a pair of 500lb bombs, 4.5 inch rocket tubes and a choice of a 150 gallon 'paper' tank or the 75 gallon unit.

As good as it is, the kit falls prey to the usual Thunderbolt errors of an undersized ventral supercharger, also placed too far forward. The Curtiss Electric prop is a little too slim and pointed to my eye too. However, the one 'razorback' feature that usually foils kit designers is the canopy - in plan view it should be parallel whereas Academy's tapers towards the rear. This in turn means the top of the rear fuselage is slightly inaccurate, but it would take a lot of (wasted) effort to correct all these slight errors. The kit canopy can be replaced with a Falcon vac-formed item, and the hood can be slid back to hide the slight 'pinch' in the fuselage.

Decals cater for two USAAF aircraft in Olive Drab/Neutral Grey, one from the 317 Fighter Group with nose art and chequers on the cowl flaps, fin and tailplanes (supplied on the sheet), the other 'Anna Louiee' from the 391st Fighter Squadron, 366th FG. The decals are fragile but well printed. Academy's instruction sheet is clear and the painting diagrams list the colours by name and FS references too.

Comparing the kit to scale plans shows discrepancies between the drawing themselves, but a check of the dimensions suggest the kit scales out well, perhaps a little short on the wingspan and chord but that's open to question. As often gets said, the finished model looks like its full-sized counterpart, so that's the main thing.

A neat little kit, perhaps the best yet in 1:72, and given the myriad of decal sheets available out there for the 'Jug', Academy's P-47D looks like having an assured following.