Scale Aviator International Magazine Issue 3 | Page 28

Hairless Joe
Returns to England

By David Gianakos
from Aerotech models in 2003. This was a great kit
and while expensive, included most everything you
needed to complete it including the engine, a BrisonSachs 4.2 cubic inch gas motor. The skin was all
carbon fiber, and had thousands of rivets and all the

A great story about a dream, a concept of
building a famous WWII Colonel’s scale P-47,
and flying it off the same airbase as he did in
the UK during WWII A heart warming historical
story all about a scale P-47D model. Editor
I have had a lifelong interest in building
plastic kits and scratchbuilding models since
I was a child. Most of my works have been
spacecraft/rockets, but in the past several
years I have gotten involved with building
and flying radio controlled RC WWII warbirds.
Mostly these have been P-47 Thunderbolt replicas,
but recently I have built two 1/5 scale F4U-1A
Corsair aircraft models, one that was placed on
permanent display at the National Naval Aviation
Museum in Pensacola, Florida last October, and
the second one will be placed at the Spirit of Flight
Center in Erie, Colorado this spring.
Who is Hairless Joe?
My first flyable warbird was a 1/6 scale P-47D kit

The large crate with Hairless Joe safely packedloading into the baggage compartment of the
airliner for the long trip to the UK ......

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