@johnb - one question I have about the kit main landing gear. Are they designed so that they have to be installed in conjunction with the nacelle assembly or can they be installed after painting to avoid possible breakage?

That wing part E28 is rather unique. Never seen anything like that before.

Nice progress!

@fiveten, thanks a lot, Spiros.
A nice idea to first mount the 'click' part onto the wings. I will definitely have a look into that. I did a dry fit and the E28 part does not protrude, so a seamless mount should be doable.

John, @johnb
I have not been very active on Imodeler in the last few weeks. This is the first time I have checked in on your Wellington build in a long while. You have definitely made some great progress since my last visit. Keep it going, it's looking very nice. You are tempting me to add a larger 1/48 scale Wellington to my Christmas wish list. 😉

At first I went for mounting the 'click' piece into the wing first. Dry fitting shows that the piece does not protrude and this approach should be doable this way.

Since I'm a bit stubborn and was curious about the approach Trumpeter did design the wing mount process, I gave it a try like it was designed to do. In case of bad fit, it would still be possible to remove the part and mount the wing without it. The 'click' piece E28 was glued to the fuselage and I let it dry for some time.

The wing clicked on easily and I was really surprised about the fit against the fuselage. No seam at all. On the pictures the wing is not glued yet, just attached using the click system.

I decided to also mount the other the same way and also this wing does fit perfectly.

A big compliment for the Trumpeter engineers in creating a system to mount the wings this easily and with such a nice fit.

To add, the wings are still easy to remove and re-attach.

@eb801, thanks a lot, Eric. I was positively surprised as well. At first I thought that this click-on principle could not work effectively, but they delivered great work. With my clumsy handling, I can only hope that the landing gear is sufficiently strong to remain intact.

Impressive that the wings clicked into place, my friend @johnb!
Kudos to Trumpeter!

John, @johnb
Now that the wings are installed, this kit build is really paying off handsomely. The Wellington's shape is suddenly unmistakable, and right before our eyes. What is even more impressive is the fit. The wings look exactly as they should and the fit is superb. This method of installing wings is brilliant.