Intakes
The front sections can be mounted so they are slightly movable, as on the real thing. The intake trunking goes together well and the whole thing fits into the centre section. Just add the fan blades that can just be seen when looking down the intake.
Speaking of the fuselage centre section, it’s a beautiful piece of engineering and when the nose section is mated to it, the fit is near perfect.
Wings
Soon it’s time to add the wings and all that’s needed is some tape to hold everything together while the glue sets. I did use a thin bead of white PVA glue to fill the fine gap at the join.
Tamiya includes some small screws for attaching the wing and they do give the whole model a nice strong, sturdy feel (less flex!). There’s a separate small panel that just slots in to cover the screw’s location and as you’d expect from Tamiya is a perfect fit – very neat.
I did drill out quite a lot of the rivets using a .35mm drill bit and a hand-help pin vice drill. I think it makes a difference on the finished model and just that extra bit of detail.
It’s probably useful to add any detail you want to the wheel bays at this stage, or earlier in construction. These bays are/were usually kept pretty clean and I’m not a huge fan of spending time adding detail to areas that you can’t readily see.
The nose radar assembly can be added much nearer the end of the build and after painting and weathering.
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