So to round out the airflow system, I figured I'd tackle the air intakes next. They are only a few parts each, but form up in quite the complex shape, and there is very little to guide you to the proper shape. This was more a task in sculpting than model building, but I think I was reasonably successful. There are certainly a few mistakes though.
I did the right side first, and to help guide the placement, I installed one of the skin segments to help locate the front end of the intake. I was required to trim a half millimeter off either end of the assembly to get it to sit right (or what my best guess at right was).
However when I did the left side, even though it appeared to be sitting long like the right side, after I trimmed it, it turned out that I should have not trimmed the front as the skin was too long. I ended up trimming the skin to match the intake length, but the left intake is noticeably shorter now - by over a millimeter, which doesn't make a lot of sense to me because I only trimmed less than half a millimeter, the same as the other side.
You can see in this last picture the length difference between the two sides. This is going to impact how the skin sits on top, as its one piece covering the between the two fuselage formers and includes the extension sections covering the intake tops. I think I can adjust how it sits by sanding the formers to a slightly different shape, or maybe I can cut the piece so the extensions are separate and trim them to fit. We shall see. This is a very difficult build.
