Well I have been remiss I guess. I started yesterday after getting the Kingfisher posted.
I was not sure if I wanted to use the add in cockpit from CMK, I am not a big fan of PE and it was really testing my nerve looking at all the little PE parts, The Carpet monster is calling for a sacrifice already it has gotten one. After trying out the kit cockpit and comparing it with the CMK, CMK won hands down. There simply is not comparison between the two, I doubt I will use the Vacume form canopy and nose though. There are some things the kit is better at. The guns will be from the kit for instance.
I started with step two which was to build the aft fuselage first. As I mention the carpet monster ate a small plug for the aft of the aft fuselage. I found it three times, the forth it was fully gone. First time I was crawling around and though it gone and found it stuck to my knee. Well any way, I cut a section of sprue and stuck it int he hole and be done with it. Damn near lost some small clear parts.
I attached the tail wheel mount as instructed but did not put on the tail wheel. I was trying to avoid this as I have had too many broken over the years and I don't like to attach anything hanging off till the last moment. I wanted to avolid the clear parts as well but I could not see how to avoid them, I like to paint and then put on clear if possible. The DF antenna has a clear housing and there are two antenna insulators aft of that as well as one on the bottom left side of the fuselage.
I then started the kit cockpit to see how it looked as it did not look too bad in the parts tree. Just a little showed me to be right in buying the CMK. I started by painting everything a healthy coating of RML 66 and will start to deatil from there. So here we are.