Will be missed indeed, my friend @airbum! And its gray successor is not easily found those days...

Looks great, Spiros (@fiveten). You a braver man than I am doing a natural metal finish on this plane. Looking forward to the metalization.

Smoooothhh. . . - I'll join the choir and look forward to the NMF!

@fiveten:

That's some seriously amazing work you have done on this - you have definitely turned it into a superb model. A triumph of talent and skill over less-than-the-best to turn it into better-than-the-best.

Landing gear installed:

I added some scratchbuilt details, in order to beef up the simplified looks:

• I added two pieces of stretched sprue at the innards of each outer main gear door. I also fabricated from stretched sprue their quite intricate "ladder looking" retraction mechanisms.

• I added retraction actuators at the main gear legs (stretched sprue).

• I drilled the NLG side door, as per reality and added a small retraction rod (stretched sprue).

• I fabricated a proper looking front NLG door from sheet styrene (I still have to add two small rods that connect the NLG front door to the leg)

Here are some pics:

Some extra filling and sanding will be performed, the mass balances have to be fabricated and installed under the horizontal stabilizer and we night head to the paint shop.

Cheers!

It is already painted since last night, my friend @airbum.
Pics to follow upon son!

That Futured Humbrol 11 looks good Spiros !

Thanks my friends Allan @kalamazoo and George @gblair!