Hi guys.
I'm gonna call this one finished, although I might add some bombs to the empty pylons.
This kit was ok. Not the greatest fitting kit I've built and there are some trouble areas. The intakes are very difficult to make seamless...but it's doable. And the parts around the mouth of the intake didn't fit very tightly, either. The "hump" that runs from the canopy to the tail took alot of work, as well. The airbrake was a pain in the butt. I think they intended for it to be displayed open because it really didn't fit well at all. The seam where the wings meet the fuselage actually went together very snugly!
This kit is completely OOB. I only added a small tube for the APU exhaust, metal foil seat belts and some filler strips where I cut out the leading edge slats.
I drilled out the hole for the APU exhaust. The kit just has an indentation molded in. I used a piece of tube styrene to give it some depth.
In the pic above you can see that I glued the intake sub-assembly to the upper part of the fuselage. The directions called for it to be attached to the lower part. I found that it was easier to get a more seamless intake by attaching it to the upper half instead.
I sanded off the lame seatbelt detail on the seat and made my own seat belts out of metal foil tape.
To make the leading edge slats I just cut along the panel lines.
The instrument panel sat about 1.5mm higher than the glare shield. I looked at alot of photos of Typhoons and it looked like it was flush on the real plane so I filled it in with putty and smoothed it out.
I cut the burner cans so that I could paint the engine parts separately.
I'm not sure if I'd recommend this kit or not. Those intake seams are a real bear and the dorsal spine/air brake was more work than it should have been. If you've got the patience and are willing to put in some extra time then this can be a fun kit. If you've been spoiled by Tamiya F-16s and Hasegawa Super Hornets this kit will slap you in the face.
Thanks for looking!