While waiting for the glue to set on the fuselage I started work on the engine exhausts, for these I’m using the Aries aftermarket set. The parts are cleanly cast and go together quite well, but I did find that the parts don’t quite match the same as the instructions as it looks like they have updated the parts for a better fit at some point.







After a bit of trial and error I found that I could fit the fuselage parts now and the rest of the built up exhausts after painting









Next were the wings. As the kit allows you to depict them fully forward with dropped flaps and slat or swept I opted to go for swept wings to save space. The wings were assembled and test fitted.





But a problem arose in that the wings couldn’t be swept back as the resin undercarriage bays are in the way





So I had an idea from my days as an engineer. I cut a template of the wing from some plasticard and tested the fit to see where the issued lay.






The test fitting proved that it was the bays causing the issue so I decided that part of the lower wing needed to be removed so I painted the top of the bays with some thinned paint and the place the template in the position I needed the wings to be in and pressed it in place so some of the paint would transfer to the template.







I then cut the template where the paint kind of showed where the bay would be and then test fitted again. Success it fitted, so the underside half of the wings were removed using the template as a guide.













The ECM blister on later Tomcats aren’t present as they are all enclosed within the area the glove vanes use to occupy, with the exception of one either side just forward of the glove vanes. So some of the Steel Beach antennas where used and the back half built up with some superfine milliput and sanded to shape.







Tail planes and ventral fins fitted and fuselage masked ready for priming









Next will be some more ancillary parts before priming and painting

Next is the Chin pod again from Steel Beach. After removing the resin casting plug I test fitted the pod to the fuselage but it didn’t look right compared to my references as it was too close to the fuselage so I added a strip of plasticard and faired it in with some filler until I was happy with the shape and it stood a little proud from the fuselage.



The on to the weapon pylons these were just out of the box with the port side being replaced with the pylon for the LANTIRN pod on the port side (again from Steel Beach)



The kits rails for the sidewinders are also incorrect for later variants so the rail was carefully sawn off from the pylon and the BOL Rail from steel Beach were added.





Although I still haven’t decided on the weapon load out as yet I have decided that this will be a Tomcat from VF-31 Sunset cruise so it would have been configured for Air to Ground combat so the Steel Beach Bomb racks were also added to the front Phoenix pallets.



References showed that the bracket for the arrestor hook in the kit is over sized and shaped wrong so the razor saw made it look a bit more like what it should



Finally some primer and paint has gone onto most of the parts





Next on the task list is decalling, weathering and the undercarriage. Assuming I don't get many more interruptions like these





As always comments, critique and suggestions are always welcomed