Thanks Isaac, Yoav and Snafu. The after burner in the model has a slight conical appearance, and Yoav's picture above shows a cylindrical shape.
Next are the nose, front part of the fuselage and cockpit. I have been working rather frantically and in terms of order rather randomly on these parts over the past week. The nose isn't difficult to make. I fitted a small brass tube (ID/OD 1/2mm) through the formers in order to install the pitot tube easier later on. That will basically be a metal pin inserted in the tube, upon completion of the model. Such construction is by far less vulnerable.
The front section of the fuselage needed a bit of trimming here and there for a good fit of the skins and in hindsight I really recommend to first glue all sections (4 to 5 and 5 to 6 after the cockpit has been placed) to each other and only then placing the formers. Formers never really fit that well and it's more important to accurately connect the skins to each other. I deviated from the instructions for this part of the build.
In any case, mind the cockpit tub. Its front former 5D needs to be installed first, as it acts as a "stopper" for the cockpit. The outer front former appeared to be too big, but 4D fitted well. After gluing the cockpit front side to 5D, install fuselage section 6 followed by fairing parts 5Y, which helps a lot to properly position the tub in the fuselage, and then the 5D rear former (on 1.5mm thick cardboard as instructed!) to close the cockpit off. A bit of trimming at the outer edges is required.
It's tricky but overall the cockpit fits very well in the fuselage. At this point I haven't installed former 6D middle yet. Need to dry-fit it properly to ensure that the front and center sections of the fuselage properly mate after installing it. In that respect: Follow the instructions!
I deliberately have not glued the nose to the front fuselage yet as some weight may be required here to prevent to model from tilting backwards after completion.
Finally some of the remaining parts of the cockpit such as instrument panel and anti-glare shield. It's not finished yet and I used a few parts of the GPM cockpit and used 0.50/0.75mm plastic rods to highlight the several switches and knobs on the instrument consoles. The main joystick at the right console comes from the GPM model, as well as a similar one on the left side.
Well, that's it for now
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Erik