On with the build
To keep matters honest I will follow the instructions ‘mainly’ to the letter, all seventeen stages, so we begin with the ejection seat and cockpit tub.
As has become pretty common the ejection seat is a multipart affair, so much more acceptable than the L shaped lumps of plastic we used to see. Given a little paint we have a pretty fair representation of the Aces II seat.
The cockpit tub and instrument panel have raised detail, which for this small scale is more than sufficient.
The intake trunking and cowls assemble from seven parts, and we need to paint the upper and lower trunk walls and add the split vane before adding the cowl sides. There are some pesky injection marks on the lower wall but only two would be seen and needed to be sanded out.
The reverse of the lower trunk wall has the front nose wheel bay moulded on, this gets a squirt of paint too but we will forego adding the rest of the nose wheel until after the major painting has been done to avoid tricky masking or handling damage. The level of detail in the wheel bay is pretty good.
It’s the same story for the main wheel bay, and there are more parts to add later after main painting.
Once fitted into the lower fuselage it can be masked and painted, I am doing this now just for ease of handling later.