@gblair, to be honest, I don't know. Another observation is that on picture this aircraft has a clear canopy and on the other a blueish one.

Hi John (@johnb): I think Spiros (@fiveten) is right on both things. I would expect the plane was delivered without a braking chute and then it was added later. I flew into a couple of Dutch airfields when I was flying and I know some of the fields have runways that are a little short for high performance airplanes. Perhaps these planes were stationed at one of these fields and they added the braking chute as a safety measure. The tinting is probably the gold color which comes from the anti-radar coating on the plane. Depending on the angle you are looking at the plane you can perceive the color of the canopy differently. I have seen tinted canopies available from some aftermarket companies, but I never felt the need to go that far. Looking forward to the next part of the build.

@fiveten, thanks for the research, Spiros. You are fully right. Just found some information (on F-16.net) that this aircraft was stationed at 311 squadron on July 21st, 1983 and it did not have the chute and still had a clear canopy. At that time I was 15 years old and visited the airbase regularly so I'm sure I must have seen it in real without the chute.

@gblair, thanks for confirming, George. With all this information I'm thinking about leaving the kit as is, so no chute and a clear canopy. Definitely makes life a bit easier.

@j-healy, thanks a lot, John. I was indeed impressed by how ell this kit fits.

The IP is provided as decals, doesn't look too bad for this scale to my idea.
Still I will try to make it look a bit more realistic.

Looks excellent for the scale, my friend @johnb!

Glued the fuselage halves together, first time since a while that I had to mount a top and bottom part, my usual WWII builds consist of a left and right side 🙂 Wings are mounted as well, no fitting issues at all.

@fiveten, thanks a lot, Spiros