I did one of these for the magazine a while ago now, nice kit but there are some awkward bits from memory, such as the intakes... those were awful to do!
I really know what you mean about the colour... I think I ended up mixing some MrColor Metallic Silver on with the base color to give it a mild silver fleck.. which worked well. Either way, it looks a really nice job with some nice weathering on it..
I think the one I modelled crashed sortly after I finished it with the loss of the pilot...