Thanks for the comments guys! I really tried to avoid having to create my own light out of clear sprue because I was afraid it would destroy the detail around the light opening. I pushed it off for about 3-4 days and desperately looked for the lost piece. When the search came up empty, I was forced to do it and it wasn't as bad as I had feared. And I was actually able to save most of that detail.
I was gone the entire weekend (Friday through Monday) on my annual offshore fishing trip so my build has been put on hold. I managed to spend a little more time on it during the week and have a few things to report.
Prior to adding the wings to the fuselage, I decided to glue on the underwing cannon gondolas.
I read one online build of this kit mentioning the poor fit of these gondolas but I experienced no such issue... fit was great!
A quick check to see how the gun barrels fit... looks good. I won't add the gun barrels until everything has been painted.
The kit pitot tube was replaced with brass tubing. The sliding brass tube sets from Albion are perfect for this type of work as they are sized to slide into one another. The hole in the wing was too big and not centered so it had to be filled and re-drilled. I took a picture of the new pitot tube in the repaired hole but it didn't upload for some reason. I'll get that pic up later.
There is a micro-sized scoop that attaches to the engine cowling. I hollowed out the opening and glued it into place so that I wouldn't lose the part.
Dry fitting the wings to the fuselage showed pretty good fit with some tiny gaps at the wing roots. In order to minimize the gap, I used some plastic sprue to spread the fuselage a tiny bit. Another picture that didn't upload. The wings were fused into place with Tamiya Extra Thin.
As you can see, fit is pretty good but the joints (especially on the bottom) will need to be cleaned up.
I'd like to deviate from the kit instructions and glue the engine, cowl and flaps together as a separate assembly. This would allow me to sandwich the exhaust pipes between the cowl and fuselage AFTER painting. But the engine piece is designed to mount THROUGH the cowl flap piece and attach primarily to the plug on the front of the fuselage. I'm not sure there is enough contact between the engine and flap piece to ensure a solid connection.