Construction
Unusually I decided to start with the upper fuselage as looking at references I discovered that all the aircraft used in the filming had updated ECS vents between the tails so I needed to add these. Fortunately, eduard make a set of these that can be adapted for this kit without too much trouble.
The nose section of the fuselage comes next. Take care when you are putting the two main side panels together as any misalignment of these will caused issues with the fit of the upper and lower inserts. I removed the interior supports to get a better fit of theses upper and lower inserts– see the pictures for what I removed. The plastic is also very soft so it very easy to remove the surface detail which will need reinstating – always a tedious job!
Excuse the poor photos but they were the only ones I could find that showed the AN/APX-111 IFF panel in front of the cockpit or the lack of it!! One of the single seaters had this panel and the other didn’t. Personally, I would have preferred to remove this panel as it would have made the blue stripe a lot more aesthetically pleasing but unfortunately the panel has a large recess on its underside so it you removed it would have left a large hole that would have been difficult to fill. With this in mind I decided it was easier to leave it in place.
Toby Page says
Great build and write up Dave. I now know I need the ECS pipes as well, I have got replacement Eduard zoom for the cockpit and resin exhaust’s for when I build mine.