As it is my first 1:48 scale jet model, I tried to follow the manual instructions. I won't describe the whole construction in full detail. Instead, I will focus on the problematic moments of my build.

Assembly of cockpit went smoothly, even the metal parts from Eduard fitted perfectly. For the fuselage, assembling it was not easy and was a lot of sweat. I think the producer selected a poor designer for the fuselage, consequently the process of gluing the pieces B6 and B7 to the upper part of fuselage A1 was quite problematic and subsequent sanding of the joint and restoring of panel lines was very difficult. I encountered further complications with the intake channels; not only should their inner pipes be longer, but their shape didn't match the muzzle, so their gluing and sanding cost all the panel lines and riveting in the area. Moreover, the correction was impeded by lack of space and complicated shape. Don't forget to place some weight inside the "nose" parts B8 and B9. I don't know how much I put exactly. I inserted few 3mm nuts, cementing them with super glue. When I joined the nose cone, I got an odd-looking egg that didn't even match the fuselage. And the result? Filling at some places, repair work at others, and making new panel lines - plenty of them!

The engine exhausts pose yet another major problem. Their opening is circular, but how about the part K11 after bonding the fuselage? An oval! So yet again, more sanding and panel lines restoration. This episode concluded the fuselage assembly. I have no clue why the flaps should be made of two parts, not mentioning their awkward partition. Yes, I am talking about the components C10 and C14. Additional fillings and sink marks elimination took a lot of time. However, I prevailed in the end.

Weapon pylons: after gluing the parts K29 and K30 together, I noticed that one piece was shorter by nearly 1mm. To remedy the problem, I aligned the top part of the pylon and sanded the bottom part to a level surface, thereby losing the "pegs", which indicated the pylon's position on the wings. I glued them on later, and that was my mistake. I should have made new pegs.

Since the kit doesn't contain its own weapons equipment, you need to buy it separately. I also wanted to mount the external fuel tanks; these are, however, included. After gluing them together, I found out, much to my surprise, that they were far from a circular profile! So I was faced with a choice between having the model without these tanks or try to restore their shape. I took the more difficult and tedious path, fraught with many hours of filling and sanding. At long last, everything was done, more or less.

These are the main complications, which you will face when constructing this attractive model. The entire assembly process was extremely time consuming and I finished the model only with the sheer strength of my will.