The canopy repair was a failure. The 2nd attempt at gluing the pieces together using epoxy was a messy affair and ended up separating again. So I'm writing that off. I haven't heard back from modelhobbies.co.uk so I have no idea when to expect a replacement canopy to show up, if at all. Luckily I do have other options available. Sergio has been kind enough to send me his SMER canopy but we'll have to evaluate fit when it arrives. I've read that the SMER G.55 kit is actually 1/50 scale, not 1/48 but hopefully it's close enough. And then there is the vacuform option. There is a vacuformed canopy set that has a G.55 canopy (intended for the Classic Airframes kit) available via hobby shop or Ebay. I've read at least one other Flying Machines G.55 build where a broken canopy was replaced with this vacuform piece and it was reported as a good fit.
Despite the canopy woes, work on the Silurante continues. The beautiful resin cockpit was base painted in black and then given a coat of light interior green. The seat and the seat bulkhead was painted in Alclad aluminum.
Dryfitting the cockpit assembly into the fuselage halves led me to an installation order that deviates from the instructions. Instead of gluing one side panel into a fuselage half and adding the seat and cockpit floor to that side, I glued each side panels into each fuselage half. Fit is defined by locating slots and is very positive.
The PE instrument panel is attached to the starboard fuselage half. I replaced the broken gunsight with a spare from the Tamiya P-47D kit.
The cockpit floor will be kept in a separate subassembly until the fuselage halves are joined where it can be installed through the bottom opening. The kit came with tiny pre-painted PE foot straps but I mangled one. Because of my canopy situation, I reasoned that the foot straps will never be visible and elected to leave them off.
The seat was attached to the rear bulkhead and will be kept separately. The kit instructions call for the seat to be mounted to the cockpit floor but the bulkhead to fuselage connection was much more critical (and secure) so the seat/bulkhead subassembly will be added through top opening after the fuselage comes together.