Colin (@coling), We seem to have been writing at the same time, so we crossed posts. Anyway, great stuff you came up with! It is clearly not a slimfit parachute, but all the harnesses for the seat-pan parachute. Anyway, bring all the great info you have - I have gained a 1/72 kit (Dragon, reboxed as Italieri) that I thought of bringing in this GB, but it will be a few months down the line. I'm tuned in and learning all the time - thanks for sharing!

Oh - and as for the F-86, I think that the parachutes were sometimes left on the seat between sorties, so you might be safe there as well by including it (on an entirely different note, I have heard that GasPatch will make a German WWII parachute Flare pistol and other stuff in due time - looking forward to that as the parachutes is often seen on the tailplane of the 109's between sorties)

Here is a new update on the seat. As mentioned, it has been a real challenge to paint, glue and bend all the harness straps. Some fiddly scribing also needed to be done on the styrene sheet for the corrugated back pad. Actually, what was even more challenging was figuring out the exact structure of the whole harness thing and how to drape it around the seat as realistically as possible when everything is so tiny.

I went for a slightly tidier look than my reference pics show because the masking tape I used was simply too stiff to bend into a more collapsed looking state. I simulated the shoulder pads flung backwards over the seat as in the ref pic. I also decided to put the Eduard etch straps draped over top of the parachute harness array - as the seat belts appeared to be in operational pics (or quite neatly so in museum seat pics). Paints used were Tamiya Desert Yellow for the harness pad and Life Color Dark Gull Gray for the straps.

I have also done the seat firing handle in red sprue and still need to touch up the Sky Gray here and there on the arm rests. Pics show the seat placed in the cockpit to make sure, as always, that everything will fit and look right. The seat definitely looks "busy" now. I am only slightly hesitant that it looks too busy, but oh well. You can see in the pics that fuselage halves and panels do not fit as cleanly on the Trumpeter kit as with a Hasegawa model, but it will all be easy to trim up later. I really like this little model so far, definitely one of Trumpeter's better engineered kit, with great detail.

Comments welcome.

I agree with Erik, Colin. This seat looks spectacular.

This update is to detail some construction challenges and fixes on the Trumpeter MiG-15.

I think they are essential to getting a good result and worth a few pics. They do slow down construction quite a bit but are worth the effort to fix IMHO. All are prominent and require decisions along the way at key stages. The Trumpeter kit has LOTS of parts for such a tiny model and some really impressive detail. Most modellers I have seen want to show all three detail areas in the model (not counting the cockpit), namely the dropped gun bay, nose bay, and engine (splitting the fuselage). I have found that it is a good idea to dry fit as many parts as possible to decide how all this comes together. The upper nose bay area fits really well, IF glued carefully in stages. I want to have the panel removable to also have buttoned up. No problem there. The gun bay, however, is clearly meant to be dropped and fits poorly when integrated into the model. Nonetheless I decided not to drop it because doing so means there are big gaps inside the intake which are unrealistic and toy-like. I also noticed how unsightly and unrealistic the two locating tabs are to the sides of the nose ring. I decided to sand off the tabs and fill the slots. Since the intake trunking is very noticeable at the front of the aircraft, I also had to decide how to finish it in a flexible realistic metallic finish that could be touched up later if marred in construction. I chose Rub n Buff for both the intake side walls and center body. BTW, the RnB surface is very smooth, the rough bit in the centre body is only from the Tamiya masking tape covering the transparent light at the top for now. I have had to redo the side walls a couple of times to eliminate molding depressions and other flaws and I have found it very easy to refinish (if time consuming to polish the plastic smooth underneath).
I have decided to work carefully on the engine to have the option of opening up the fuselage to display it. It is tricky to paint and assemble and not have parts break off along the way. I have done metal areas in Rub n Buff and MM Acryl Steel as well as Tamiya Metallic Brown and Flat Black. I will do some wiring and weathering with Tamiya Smoke in the final stages of construction. Once again, I want to be able to close up the fuselage and open it at will so I am proceeding very carefully to have good alignment.
In some photos, you can see that the ailerons and rudder pieces do not fit tightly and have unrealistic gaps. I have therefore had to add styrene shims along the way. The seams where they are "welded" on by liquid glue will be sanded smooth later to invisibly close the gaps bu still keep the surfaces movable. Once again, this is all about planning to make sure some things are fixable before they are glued together.

Once these bits are done it should all go together rapidly. I will then be glad to get on with painting.

Colin (@coling), not only do you pull out all the bells and whistles in details, you also have to combat a somewhat relaxed fit of the plastic. I like every bit of the build!

This i super job, Colin!
I am not brave enough to build a Mig-15 or -17 wit split fuselage to display the engine.
Nice engine surrounding area improvements!

You're definitely "going to town" with this Colin. I really like the cockpit detail you've done, since that's actually one of the (many) weak points on this kit. Regardless of its faults, this is still the most accurate 1/48 MiG-15, for getting shapes right, sweepback angles, etc. The Tamiya kit is much more problematic on these issues than people think. ("buildability" and "accuracy" are two different words, and Tamiya did a lot of jumping when they should have done more looking back in the 90s)

Here's mine.

1 attached image. Click to enlarge.