Hello again! I hope everyone is doing well! It's been a while since I've posted an update. Which reflects my absence from the modeling room. Due to various issues, my mind has not been on modeling and I've been doing other things. Finally got the urge to fiddle with the plastic and hopefully this signals a more consistent return to the modeling bench.
Looking at other Meng 163 builds, I am probably going to deviate from the kit's instructions to hopefully circumvent some of the fit issues that arise from a standard construction sequence. Some builders have reported good luck attaching the wings to the fuselage first and that's the route I'm going to take. I may even attach the rear fuselage halves to their respective sides so that I'll have a complete left and right halves.
All of my panels will be shut but I've decided to assemble the 30mm wing cannons since the under wing ammo chutes look up directly into the gun bay.
The cannons are obviously designed to be seen from above. Note that the ammo chute does not line up with the opening on the wing bottom.
The view from underneath into the ammo openings simply shows the featureless bottom of the guns. To keep things simple and preserve momentum, I am just going to paint all of this black.
The instructions would have you foolishly glue in a delicate antenna into the bottom of the wings during wing assembly. I had other plans so I didn't mind it when the antenna broke when removing it from the sprue.
Instead, I just glued in the antenna base, with the whip antenna replaced with a hole. A wire or piece of stretched sprue will be used for the antenna at the end of the build.
I found a spare oxygen bottle in one of my Me262 kits and decided to add it to the shelf just forward of the fuel tank.
