Well folks, moving on to the more or less "major" assembly. While the shape is accurate and the engraved panel detail nicely done, there are a couple fit issues. Italeri engineered the wings rather oddly - when you join them to the fuselage, there's a square shaped void that's filled with another two-piece assembly - which of course doesn't fit so hot. So there's been some filling and sanding going on at the wing roots:
And just a little more on the underside - getting the front fuselage, intakes and main landing gear wells to play together nicely:
Meanwhile, some add-ons to make the F/A-18F an EA-18G. No insider information here - Boeing and navy PR photos.
The saddle-looking SATCOM antenna - just sheet styrene cut to shape working from the photos:
The wing fences Gregg mentioned - thin strip styrene rough-cut to shape, sanded for wing camber (the top still need to be sanded a bit to smooth out the countour and make the height uniform):
A couple extra antennae on the arse end (identical on the other side, but I didn't take a picture). The one in front of the stab is basically 3 layers of styrene cut to shape, the one back toward the tailpipe is spare sprue cut and sanded more or less to shape:
Lastly on the nose - two more spare sprue antennae plus the "pizza box" that Italeri neglected to include. Just two layers of styrene sheet, laminated and lightly rolled to get them to curve:
Obviously the styrene and sprue add ons are still a bit rough and need some sanding/blending in yet!