I have had a very good experience with the Lanier P-47N. I have had over 140 flights and only one really bad landing...my fault...and now near finished the repair. My only negative comment is that the cowl is a little to thin...and I needed to beef up retract gear area in the wing (but I beef up all ARF retract gear area's...a very common weak area in ARF's).

Mine is powered with a Lee K & B .61 with pumper carb and Perry pump. I use Robart Heavy Duty mechanical retracts and Robart scale wheels, with Robo Struts. I also used a Slim Line in-cowl muffler, 90 deg. and ended up with just the cylinder head sticking out the side of the cowl...works great. I have installed a 16 oz. fuel tank and single point refuel. I added 3 1/2 oz. of lead to the nose fire wall for balance. All Airtronics servo's and gear.

I've needed to replace the Robart scale wheels three times so far, for they wear out rather quickly...and I'll admit my landings are less then glass smooth...but those wheels grip like no others I've tried and look way to cool. I just reordered a new set of HD retracts from Quantum Models for I managed to ware my first set out...

The model repairs easily, and was very pleased at its construction. I also epoxied all area's of the fire wall and fuel tank area at the kits first assembly and this has kept oil out of the airframe.

My Lanier P-47N has a built up wood and foam fuselage and a built up wing. All easy to repair. The only fiberglass on the kit that I have is the cowl.

The model tracks well in the air, and no matter what the speed, handles well. It slows up well enough and handles like any other tail dragger on the ground. Yes, you do need to use a little rudder on take off, and if you use a big prop like I do (Master Air Screw Scimitar 14 X 6 wood), you will need to install a bit of right thrust on your engine mount to counter the torque of the prop and engine combination. It has a wide tracked main landing gear and handles great on the ground too.

There has been a bit of negative input about Lanier, and I will admit their older models (25 years ago), were laking in construction materials, com paired to todays ARF kits. But they were cheap, they flew well and they were the only game in town at that time. I understand that they still build the older ARF's today, the same way...but the newer ARF's...the P-47, is a good kit.

I recommend the P-47N and love the model.

Soft landings always,
Bobby of Maui