Usually builds like this start relatively slowly with interior work, but this kit has only minimal interior details, and what is there, is easily accessible through the canopy opening. That's a good thing, as it enabled me to skip the slow start and go straight to coarse construction. Just some tail surfaces to go, and the main parts will be in place.
One of the reasons this initial burst of speed makes me happy, is that there's going to be quite a bit of work around the various seams to be done, and this way, I can start that about a week sooner. First priority will be to clean up the sides of the front fuselage (still attached with tape here), so it can be permanently attached to the rear, which will finish the lining up of the upper and lower decks. Only then will I be able to get to work with filler and sandpaper on the joins of the rear.
The rear half is a bit of a jigsaw. It consists of top, bottom, side panels (which include the wheel wells and one side of the air intakes) and the single piece wing. All but the top have to be juggled into position before glueing things up in segments, so once again I found myself wishing I had just a bit more in common with an octopus. After that, the top goes on, but this leaves the front end only roughly aligned. The front hull and the air intake assemblies will be needed to get everything lined up permanently.
The undercarriage is cleverly designed, but execution leaves something to be desired. With the design as it is, near perfect fit is required, and unfortunately, the dimensions of the various locator pins and holes don't match all the precisely. Especially annoying when widening a hole means breaking through the surrounding material, and evenly reducing the size of the pin rather beyond my skills with a file
