Thanks John and Hugh. The thing about the above picture is that the radio equipment is stacked differently than that in the kit. I'm gong to see if it's worth the effort of adjusting the kit part after examining it closely. In the meantime, I set to work on some of the cockpit shortcomings....
The best view of the pit will actually be through the crew hatch and it is here that the kit falls a bit short. There is no bulkhead detail and the
Bordfunker seat pedestal is rather crude.
Here you can see the seat pedestal drilled out and shaped to more represent a frame. The floor is also temporarily installed to show the gap between it and the lower fuselage surface. This needs to be filled.
Using plastic card and various references, I built up the areas visible through the hatch as shown below. The slightly raised floor that supports the ammo box for the MG131 was cut off as part of this modification.
The same area after painting, washing, and dry-brushing with silver:
The instrument panel was also painted up by hand starting with filling the instrument faces in black, picking out the various highlights in white, yellow, and red (the latter two very faintly) and touching up with a black 0.5mm marker. The faces have yet to receive a dab of Future.
Though not up to the same quality as a prepainted PE panel, it will be good enough for the limited view through the glazing.