John, @johnb
Your work on the PE cockpit looks amazing ! You also picked a good paint scheme for your Henschel. This PE cockpit is a huge improvement over the original kit supplied parts. You might even consider building the model with the canopy opened. It would show off all of this impressive work that you have done. It really would be a shame to hide it with the canopy closed. But on the other hand, a closed cockpit would preserve the aircraft's lines. Either way, the choice is yours.

These yellow wingtip accents and fuselage band accents were tactical markings, that denoted which theater of operation the aircraft was in. Yellow was the color used for the Eastern Front.

The planes with the white wingtip and fuselage bands were used in Africa and the Mediterranean theaters. However, on occasion you will see aircraft that have different markings from what they should have. These planes were likely just transferred in from another theater, and have not had the new markings painted on just yet. It's common to see yellow under the engine on a single engine fighter like the Bf-109 or FW-190. This was a recognition color.

These are just the basics, and I have not gone into too many details, such as the numerous colored fuselage bands that were used on the fighter planes in service as Defense of the Reich.

This is a fascinating subject... (or I'm an airplane geek)... maybe a little of both. 🙂

John - I just caught up to your tank buster build here and it looks great. Good choice of color scheme and that PE cockpit paid off big time, worthy of risking your eye sight. Thanks to Louis for clarifying those yellow and other color ID markings. That fuselage looks so narrow, the pilot must have had to be shoe horned into the seat. I'll be following along on this one.

Mounted the wings and used rubber bands so they would fit tightly against the fuselage.

Hi @johnb, terrific work so far, especially the cockpit, and you're right, it's so narrow, just like a F1 car. I also like the colour scheme you've chosen, the yellow highlights really make it pop. I was also surprised with the excellent fit of parts, I've had some bad experience with earlier Revell kits, it must be down to your building skills as much as the Hasegawa inheritance.

What a great rig for pulling the wings tight, John (@johnb). I use masking tape, which always seems to be more fiddly than it is worth. With all of the work you did on the cockpit, I would certainly go for an open canopy.

Not so much progress but still worth to mention to my opinion.

I did some modification on the radiator outlets. Removing the outlet flap and install a folded PE one.

Not sure if the naming 'outlet' is correct. Feel free to correct this.

Also some paiting on the engines is done, they exist of just one single piece of plastic but the detailing is not to bad.

The sheet of PE also provided some side panels for the fuselage.

I did try to mount one but that went totaly wrong.

After putting super glue and applying the PE part it got bended.

Trying to remove the part did ofcourse result in an unusable piece of PE and severe remains of glue on the fuselage.

After severe grinding it seems to be solved but the first layer of primer will definitely show if it is done correctly. No pictures yet of this incident, but I will share them once the primer is applied.

Some small update on this nice kit.

Till now I'm pleasently surprised by this Revell/Hasegawa kit.

Hoping that my modelling skills are sufficient to turn it into a great build.

Engines are covered within the nacelles, again very nice fit.

Added PE radiators as well.

Opened up the slots in the engine covers.

Engine instrumentation is prepared and will be added after the entire plane is painted.

Reaching the point to bring on the primer and see if I need to do some touch-ups.

Have missed the progress along they way, wow this is looking great! Your work with the photo-etch cockpit is incredible and really makes a big difference. The other little touches definitely add up to improve the overall appearance. Nice assembly work, glad the fit was generally pretty good. Looking forward to seeing the rest of the colors applied.