seawinder

FWIW, I pretty much followed Gary's route on the CF-188 build currently underway. Like him, I forgot about the refuel bay and cover until too late. I decided not to bother with the bay piece and was able to secure the cover piece into the opening with little difficulty and pretty good fit. I also thinned the forward surface of the front nose gear bay bulkhead (probably not necessary) and filed some plastic off around its edges to mitigate against any possible step. It all worked out pretty well and only required a few small bits of filler in a couple of small gaps.

FWIW, I had a bottle of Mr. Color Air Superiority Blue, but ended up using a bottle from SMS Premium instead because it was a closer match to my FS595B chip. If you haven't tried them, they're really nice paints; no thinning required, available at USAGundam.

Kinetic has boxings for F/A-18As. While all their Hornet kits have options for some needed items (nose, lower front fuselage), the O sprue with the earlier vertical tails, AFAIK, is only found in the F/A-18A and CF-188 boxings. Ultracast (Canada) has a large stock of older decals. Some are really expensive, but they've got a bunch of Superscale F/A-18A sheets that are reasonably priced and include markings with the paint scheme the OP is after. Here's a link to the Hornet section at Ultracast. Scroll down a ways to find the Superscale items. https://www.ultracast.ca/1-48-Decal

Just for the record, some of their older kits are now showing up in red boxes, including the Spitfire I/II (no. A05115), so you have to be sure you've got the right kit number.

Just to add a bit to WymanV's post, if you want to do any of the late Merlin Spits (VIII, IX, XVI), Eduard has them all covered, and they're really good kits. Fiddly in the way Eduard always seems to be: why mold it in one piece when you can do it in four? However, they're very well engineered and fit very well where it counts if you take your time and study the instruction drawings carefully. People complain about the exhaust manifolds/stacks, but they do go together fine once you figure out what aligns with what. My only real nit is the two-part upper engine cowling. It's possible to eradica

No problem. 😃

Yes. I posted the MRP numbers to the thread you started at Britmodeller. MRP 241, 101 and 102 for FS 36081, 34079 and 34102 respectively. Ever tried Google? 😉

So I guess what you meant to say was "no aftermarket company has made ..." Yes, that's clearer.

... which makes the first sentence of your OP a bit questionable?

Forgetting the Hobby Boss perhaps?

I'm currently building the 2018 "60 Years of NORAD" display plane, SN 188776. Closeup photos of the cockpit area pretty clearly show it with an SJU-17 seat. I've got a resin seat from Wolfpack that fits the Kinetic cockpit tub no problem.

I finally looked through the Two Bobs instruction sheet for the decal set. According to them, the item is a Raytheon GAS-1 GPS anti-jamming antenna.

FWIW, Wolfpack has a GPS antenna as part of their CF-18 package. It's much smaller than the item in the photos.

Yes, the R2D2 thing figured in a lot of the posted responses seven years ago. Clever, but not totally helpful.

There was an ARC thread about seven years ago where someone asked about the disk-shaped dorsal fairing behind the cockpit on CF-188s. At the time, AlienFrogModeller, who had just finished a beautiful model of an RCAF Hornet and seemed to have some inside information, said he wasn't allowed to talk about it. Are we far enough on in time that somebody can share any information about it? I also wonder if any aftermarket outfit has released a 1/48 resin piece. I'll obviously scratchbuild it if necessary ...