Forward Equipment Bay
The forward avionic equipment bay is provided with an option to display it open or closed. The kit part is acceptable but it is not accurate. The details do not match up with any photos I have of this compartment.
Everything I’ve read about this kit mentally prepared me for the worst. As such, I made sure I tape parts together and dry-fitted the hell out of it before I am willing to glue parts together. The underside of the fuselage is warped, as shown on below photo.
To fix this, I glued a straight piece of styrene beam inside of the bottom fuselage. This fix will ensure the bottom joint is flat and will minimise the amount of putty needed to cover the seam.
Speed Brakes and Landing Gears
For an improvement to the speed brakes, I am using the Aires Jaguar Speed Brakes Set #4606. Aires took the kit’s speed brake housing and improved the details inside it, hence the Aires’s housing simply drops into place in the kit without any fuss.
During the trial fitting of the Aires speed brakes set, I assembled the main landing gears as well. I found out that the main landing gear MUST be attached to the mounting plate on the speed brake housing before it can be glued to the fuselage: you cannot do otherwise.
The landing gear for the Jaguar is quite complex in design and construction. That’s why Kitty Hawk made the landing gear in multiple parts. However, they neglected to provide idiot-proof alignment marks for all the parts to fit together. It also didn’t help their instruction diagram for the main landing gear assembly is unclear. But, I was able to figure it out by referencing the photo of the real landing gear. I found out the secret is to attach (even with just a dab of glue) the main landing gear to the mounting plate on the speed brake and insert this unit into the fuselage. This gives me a point of reference to set the axle direction and the angle of the wheel dolly parts # I45 and I42. Once the dolly is set properly, all the other structs will fall into place logically. See my photo below and you’ll understand what I mean.
(Photos Above: To assemble the landing gear, I inserted the landing gear into the fuselage to help me determine the direction and set the angle of the wheel dolly. Note the wheel dolly axle must be set parallel to the underside of the fuselage).
Here are a few photos of the completed left (port) landing gear for reference.
I added hydraulic tubing and electrical cables to the landing gears by simulating them with 0.3mm soft solder wires.
All the internal parts are painted with yellow-green zinc chromate colour.
I added 3 g of lead fishing weight to the front of the nose to ensure the model will not be a tail sitter.
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