First a technical term :
The Mig-17 uses what is called a bifurcated or split inlet. Another words, there is one circular inlet in the nose that is immediately separated into a left and a right air duct for the centrifugal flow compressor jet engine in the center fuselage. The reason the inlet is bifurcated is to place the nose gear and the cockpit in between the air ducts. This was common for mostly early jet engines having a centrifugal compressor that did not care much about smooth airflow to the inlet.
The model struggles in assembling such a splitter primarily because the splitter itself is a 3D surface that is rendered here in 2D. The assembly technique I used was to assemble the inlet in pieces while in the nose. The result was less than desirable.
here are the parts
insert a frame for the two ducts to go thru
install the ducts
notice the nose gear bay inserted from the inside
glue the splitter ( not the best of fits.
insert nose weights to prevent a tail seater.
add more sections going aft
lastly, I added pieces of wood to better support the nose gear strut.
Isaac