Engine bearers and assembly
To be honest I found this area the most difficult but some of it is my own doing and some, well… who knows. The biggest problem was that I had earlier added the intake ducting that sits underneath the engine and ZM don’t show this attached until later so that was my fault; it needed to come off and be attached after the engine was seated in its bearers – definitely a case of following the instructions on this stage of assembly. In the end I did manage to add the engine bearers and get the engine to seat properly on them as well as add the trunking from underneath and remove and reattach most of the pipework assembly but what a faff!
As the model will be displayed with the engine and frame open to view the upper and lower frame that’s designed to trap the whole engine/bearer assembly in a ‘clamshell’ didn’t work out as planned (I couldn’t get the two-part lower frame to stick together properly) the difficulty being getting everything to line up correctly – we got there in the end though.
The good news is that you can see it all secured in place ready for the main wing assembly that joins with only small amounts of filler needed at the wing roots.
I have decided that only one gun bay will be open on the port side, so the other panels are dropped in, fitting well and being glued with liquid poly run around the edges.
Getting there
The tailplane elevators are added now, being set slightly ‘drooped’, along with the rudder. The tape is there to hold the elevators at the correct angle while they set.
