Seems like forever, but been sick, busy with work, home improvements, wife's birthday and just life in general, but I made some progress. I though after painting my Bf-110, I could take a quick break to let the base coats dry, but have to say, this kit is fun. In general this kit goes together well, and is fun to build. I can't say much for the photo-etch, for being brass seems very brittle. I ended up using Eduard for the lap belts. Still all in all it really seems to be building up into a nice kit. Just doing basic building an painting here, not finished and obviously no washes yet.

From Tom's @tcinla postings I was aware the the nose gear was too short. I compared it to the Monogram Kit, and true enough it seemed to be about an 1/8 inch (3.2 mm) short. I drilled down the center, cut the gear and inserted a segment that length where the problem seemed to be and stuck a wire down the center to reinforce the plastic. I am pretty happy with the results. Back to another busy work week.

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Very nice Walt.
That interior looks very nicely detailed.
Great correction on that landing gear, it should be strong enough this way.

I have to admit, I have been enjoying this kit. I have been busy with work and chores at home. It seems I own a house with for SoCal standards had a decent sized although in most other states a small lot. Still I have 30+ Palm trees, an apple, pear, pomegranate, cumquat, loquat, lime, tangerine, pineapple quava, apricot, white grapefruit and two orange trees. Needless to say the yard, then the pool and of course my cars take time to keep going.

Still I have found some time to work on the P-61. I have to say that while not perfect this kit is really fun to build. The interior offers a nice build up of detail right out of the box, with an odd mix of details missing, most notably the throttle, mixture and prop controls on the left hand quadrant. I added wire and knobs to add those details. Not perfect but effective.

The instrument panel looks pretty good with the decals installed. A lot more detailed than I could paint. Here is the interior still in pieces with everything painted and clear coated, ready for a wash, to really complete it. It is nice that they gave some of the placards for the cockpit even though one of them just has random letters printed on it. Once installed you can't read it anyways so it still looks right, and official.

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Your P-61 look great, my friend @luftwaffe-birdman!
P.S. Nice trees selection!

Thanks George, @gblair, I live about an hour from Redlands with no traffic. I used to work at the local airport there restoring a DeHavilland Beaver for a gentleman. I would teach by day, go there at night and work for 4 hours, and work there during the summer instead of summer school. He moved the project to Washington to finish it up, by which time the wings and 90% of the fuselage were done. I stayed here, only to be called up a few years later to work on his Grumman/McKinnon Goose. Notice the similarities in paint schemes. 😉 The man loves his yellow!

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Those are some great looking 1:1 planes, Walt (@luftwaffe-birdman). You say an hour from Redlands with no traffic. There is almost no time in SoCal that there is no traffic. My wife and I were C-141 pilots at Norton, when it was an active duty base. Our daughter was born at the March AFB hospital. Our biggest fear was that we would be trying to rush from Redlands to March during rush hour to have the baby, but she came at 3 in the morning, so very little traffic.

That is an awesome looking interior, Walt.
Closing of the fuselage looks quiet ok to me.

Brilliant interior Walt!