As promised, a bit of progress to show, although there was some sanding to be done, rather unusual for an ex- Hasegawa kit.
PIC 1. The nose and cockpit assemblies have been joined to the fuselage, after first painting the inner surfaces of the air intakes and the turbine blades.
PICS 2 and 3. The auxiliary by-pass doors have been fitted in the drooped position, normal for on the ground without the engine running, and again the inner faces have been painted, white and medium Sea Grey, in a satin finish.
PIC 4. The intakes fitted. Some sanding around the joints is still to be done here.
PIC 5. The upper panel, immediately aft of the cockpit, needed quite a lot of sanding around the edges, with a jeweler's file and wet n dry, to allow the panel to fit flush with intakes. A small amount of filler is now required to correct the very small gaps.
PIC 6. Top fuselage panel/wing root fillets in place. The joint will be filled with PVA later.
PIC 7. Test fitting of the main wing shows that again some sanding around the leading edge joint will be required to allow it to fit - that's tomorrows job!
Once the wing is fitted, then it's time to plan the rest of the build, to ensure the best sequence to allow ease of painting. All being well, I'll post another up-date tomorrow.