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Well, it's been sitting in my room for a couple of weeks looking dejected after my criticisms of the kit on first glance and I finally decided to make a start on this basket case. Firstly, a note on my skills as a modeller. I don't do this very often; time and circumstance mean that I am busy with other stuff, but I have deliberately made time to build this. Also, I haven't made models consistently for around 15 to 20 years and I don't have an air brush, so I will paint it by hand and rattle can, so don't expect excellence; mediocrity is a skill unexploited in forums like this, I feel. So, here 'tis. Crank up the volume... "Here is the soul of a maaaan. Here in this place for the taking. Clothed in white, stand in the light; here is the soul of a maaaaaaan...." As Bruce Dickinson warbled his way through the first bars of If Eternity Should Fail I contemplated my options with this kit. There are many issues that should be tackled properly, accuracy and fit problems that those of you with an eye for perfection would fix, but I'm not one of you. I have made the decision to turn this into a (rather imposing) desk top model with a custom made stand, so accuracy issues won't be top of the list, although some things will be unavoidable and won't be ignored. The box looks suitably fancy and the photographs on it give useful reference for finish, but there's plenty of stuff on the net on this aircraft anyway, including Iron Maiden's own site. At first glance, there's lots of flash on the sprues and as I commented when I got this, the sprue thickness is a bit overdone in parts. Boy, I'm glad I'm not tackling the undercarriage. Sink marks, circular mould spots, surface blemishes, excess flash; this kit could have come from the 1950s or 60s. As I mentioned elsewhere, the first thing I noticed was the nose shape; the 747 has a straight nose from the windscreen to the radome; as you can see here the kits' is not. I'm not sure at this stage whether I will actually alter this or not. I was hoping this would be a OOB assembly, but oh no... So I'm inclined not to tackle this as, where do I stop? There are so many issues I've found so far with accuracy. Another glaring issue is with parts fit; for example, the holes for the hori stab don't line up with the part. I'll cut the pins off and make new ones with dowel. Also, the hori stab butts up to this bit of it that sticks out. Why didn't the kit manufacturer just butt it up against the fuselage? The hori stab, as on most big jet airliners is variable incidence and there is a flat plate here that's not represented, although I see some detail lines on the decal sheet that are vaguely meant to represent this. I began with removing parts from the sprues and because of the excessive flash, each one has to be trimmed and sanded individually. The hori stab was glued first, which revealed big gaps in the leading and trailing edges and these were filled with putty and sanded - twice. The next bits were the engine exhaust cores, which were painted black (after the obligatory sanding and trimming of excess unwanted sticky-out bits). Next I'll be tackling the fuselage and main wings. If you are following this, please be patient as I won't be adding to this every day... "Reef in a sail at the edge of the world, if eternity should fail. Waiting in line for the ending of time, if eternity should fail...