Manstein's revenge:
----its all about keeping it real...
Jawhol, herr Feldmarschall!
Last night's work... Fought with the tubes for my engine pods for awhile. Still not happy with them. I'll be looking for another tube option, but may end up making basswood ribs for these as well... Trimmed my now fully cured upper wing panels to match the silhouette below...
Nosecone glued onto upper fuselage section; instrument panel scrounged from the spares box. Will add some colour to it next time the paint comes out.
The cockpit area... The basic cockpit area is from the spares, actually meant for the single-seat Me163 that donated the upper fuselage section. Control stick is a 1/72 cannon barrel from a Zero kit, with a little bend just below the flanged section. Armour plate behind the seat is from the spares, unsure of the origin. The pics I've seen often show what seems to look kind of like a fabric hammock kind of setup(?) I found a curved section of the upper fuselage that donated the lower nosecone, razor-sawed & sanded, added a little bend at top & bottom et voila. After paint and masking tape seatbelts are added it I think it'll work.
Dry fitting revealed that this setup will work, but I had to remove the notch I had left in the basswood at the extreme nose.
Still a big gap in the leading edge - once I've added the engine inlets I'll be able to blend that into a better shape.