I tend to use the kit seats if they look good enough to pass after adding the seat belts. Nice catch on the reinforcement on those inner seams that may pop with some stress and handling. As you want to ensure a long shelf life, especially on a large model that will be a bit heavy when completed. Great start Herr Spiros...The Tornado may be large, park a 32nd F-14 or F-15 next to the Tornado. A bit more larger.

"The Mad Gluer"

At the steps of the infamous Mad Riveter, here are my results of a gluing frenzy afternoon/evening:

Some parts details (for styrene) amazes me. Please check the middle section of the Thrust Reverser Bucket:

I dry fitted the wings, which are designed to be moveable, to the fuselage part:

There's a lot of play, which I don't like. Since I was going to represent my Mig Eater with wings swept forward, which is the normal pose for Tornados on the ground, I will glue the wings pemanently swept forward. The only issue is that there will be an unrealistic gap at the flexible wing seals, at the wing root.
I might try to fix it with a scratchbuilt insert.

Hi my friend @airbum!

I used liquefied styrene after assembly to strengthen and together seal some not so positive bonds, like the curved area of the fuselage that meets the corresponding WWW (Wheel Well Wall - LOL), as I want to have the maximum bonding strength, to reassure the rigidity of this BBB (Big Beautiful Beast - LOL2). I just make sure to wipe (with my finger or other suitable tool) ALL excess liquefied styrene, as it may cause plastic melting and the inevitable sink marks at places you do not want too.

I have rarely used liquefied styrene to assemble parts, mostly in cases that the mating surfaces had obvious gaps and I was lazy to sand them down...

As for the wings, I definitely agree with you, my friend, though I wouldn't object leaving them moveable at a - say - 1/72 F-14 snaptite kit, assembled by a teenager who is new to modelling.

My 1/32 Mig Eater definitely does not fall into this category. Moreover, the Tornado has those distinctive wing mounted pylons that remain parallel to the flight direction (of course!) regardless of the wing position. This means internal mechanisms, that are not accounted for at the Revell kit: you would have to rotate each one of the four manually, everytime you would change the wings' angle...I don't like it.

PFP QCs have been promoted to PFP QARs (Quality Assurance Representatives). This means stricter acceptance criteria and expanded areas of examining. You can bet they will go for max speed optimized retracted wings...the structural rigidity becoming a cosideration...

Thanks for following!

Thanks my friend @michel-verschuere! Having learned the rigidity lesson the hard way, I just strengthen whichever large mating surfaces I come along.

Spiros, @fiveten

This is going to be one MONSTER of a plane when you get it assembled. It is already impressive with the cockpit alone being bigger than the majority of the entire Shiden. I am impressed with the details and this is indeed going to be a great one to watch come together. I am also pleased to see that you have the green light from QC2. This is very important, and they say the apple doesn't fall too far from the tree. You have been blessed with a wonderful family.

Hi everyone!

Tonight I went and permanently joined the wings:

The swinging mechanism is flimsy, so I glued everything to everything (!...?)

and secured them by using many sprue pieces, so the two wings and the securing fillets are all strongly interconnected to each other.

I might overdid it, but those huge wings will not only carry their own weight, but also some heavy stores. I wouldn't like to realise wings sagging when it would be too late.

I'll let the structure dry well, then microtrim it to fit between the two fuselage halves.

All the best, my friends!

Hi George @gblair!

I would normally have 7-8 models "in work", at various progress stages, trying to focus at one of them at a time, making a good progress on it, tackling another one only at the phases of glue curing, or paint drying, or even temporary lost motivation.

By entering this lovely site, i discovered the amazing joy of group building; and, also, the joy of vac and resin building. So, I keep one entry at each GB I am honored to be a participant, one resin and/or one vac and so on...I mainly focus at one model, but also strongly try to achieve some constant (even if small) progress at the rest GBs.

Got paint supplies on this! Also, my little LHS has supplies as well. I hope this "failsafe" setup will be sufficient!