Those reinforcement ribs, seem to be possible to replicate, my friend @johnb!
Looking forward to your superb entry and what becomes a really exciting multi-combo build!

For those building the A-M Il-2, here is something I figured out about the kit back when it was released.

The wing needs to be a tight fit, and the joint is very tight, so if you do a "traditional" assembly and wait to attach the wing till the fuselage is done, you will have problems. Instead, before proceeding further, attach the upper wing part to the main fuselage part. You can work it into position from inside/outside and get the positioning perfect. Then proceed to assemble the fuselage. The rest of the wing comes together as follows: lower center wing glued in place, then lower outer wings. You won't use any putty on anything.

HTH

I was so lucky to have Tom's Modelling Madness article to hand when I built my AM kit a couple of years back. Not sure if it would have turned-out quite as well if I hadn't followed his lead.

IL2 'Sturmovik'

All the best.

@ij001 - that looks really nice. Glad I could help. Seeing results like that and my articles mentioned as helping is nice to know.

@gblair George excellent choice of markings! I did one in those markings a couple of decades ago.

@fiveten Spiros and @johnb John, thanks for having me in this build of yours!
Here's my kit:

They say you can't go wrong with Tamiya (can you imagine this is my first Tamiya kit in almost 40 years of modelling?) so I hope this saying is true to this kit as well.

Everything still originally sealed in the bags. Can't wait to start on her, but until then, I'll get a little bit of aftermarket upgrades for her and hopefully finish the Midway duo.

Excellent choice to join this build, Sebastijan @inflames
Your build will definitely yield into an amazing Stormovik, looking far better than what I can come up with.
I'm absolutely looking forward to your techniques and do hope to learn a lot from them.

Starting off...

I assembled the central wing part (attaching the assembled radiator, bay walls and some basic cockpit elements)... ...then joined the fuselage halves. Main wheels, fuel tank and horizontal stabilizers were also assembled. Here is the progress so far... Thanks for stopping by!

Thanks my friend @johnb!
Yes, the balancer is very fragile, so I bravely cut it off first thing 🙂