Finally, some worthwhile progress pics!
Fuselage halves:
All the extra plastic is for:
1. Reinforcing the dodgy butt joint between the front and rear halves of the upper fuselage (neccessary because of the 1/2 seater options),
2. Bulkhead ahead of the front cockpit so that I could fill the space with weights, because the little nose cone didn't feel like it held enough. If you think the fit of the cockpit tubs into the fuselage looks a bit tenuous, then read on...
3. Reinforcement for the top of the undercarriage bay, because with the low contact area between it and the fuselage, I cound see it pushing out with the weight of the model on it once it was finished,
Cockpit area:
Predictably enough, the rear cockpit tub fell out as I was setting up the pic. The cockpit tubs' only really solid connection to the fuselage is their back edges: the sides don't really touch and the control panels are such a fragile fit to the floor that gluing them into the comings doesn't help much. After this pic was taken, the rear 'pit was stuck back in with much extra Evergreen to anchor it.
Fuselage finally together:
You can see the ejector seats and the Smokewinders on the clip sticks at the back. The fin is off in the paintshop in the early stages of a fairly elaborate scheme. I thought it'd be easier to paint it first and fit it last. The same can't be said for the jet nozzle though. An F-16 nozzle has three "rings": the actual petals, a metallic-coloured ring that's part of the engine, and a painted ring that's part of the fuselage. The "brilliance" of this kit shines through again in the fact that they've moulded all three together in one, sink-mark-riddled piece, so you either have to stick it on first to get the upper/lower paint demarcation on it, then struggle to paint the nozzle in between the integrally-moulded airbrakes, or you can paint the metal bits first, mask them, glue it on, then pray that the fuselage colour doesn't leak under the masking. Just to make masking more fun, the demarcation between the metal ring and the painted ring is wavy.....
And now the bad news: I'm going to have to put this aside now in order to do Other Things, so there will be scant progress for quite a while now...