All the panel lines are engraved and looking at references they also see to be right. There are a few that need to be added in just after where the wings attach to the fuselage. There is a small hole in the vertical stabilizer (the environmental control intake) that needs taking care of. I’ll use a small tube, fill and sand to correct it.
Dry fitting the bay doors revealed some small gapping so some extra filling work will be needed. The biggest area that’s needs attending is the intakes. There are two nasty seams running down through them and hard to get at. There are some aftermarket intakes (AMS Resin) out that will help out here. I’ll just scratch build mine. The cockpit area is a bit empty. But that’s no biggie as the Viking has a smoked canopy, so you’ll really won’t see much from the outside. There are aftermarket cockpits as well. I will not be using them.
I balanced it on a pencil to see if weight was need, yes small amount. Good thing is that I can add the weight later through the opening where the cockpit goes into. The cockpit can be added later after the fuselage is painted. I’m using aftermarket decals from Super Scale. The markings are high-viz for the S-3A VS-21 CAG.
Paragon makes a resin wing and tail fold set. I thought about it, then looking at what there going for on eBay…guess not.
More to follow,
Joe
