Impressions so far are that overall the kit is pretty much what I would expect from a "cottage industry" manufacturer - some high quality stuff, some lower quality stuff, some well thought out areas, and a number of areas where things simply have to be reworked (in my opinion) in order to get the kind of quality / durability / etc that I personally feel comfortable with. Some of these are very subjective areas, of course, so there can be considerable disagreement on those topics.

An additional factor that I have to take into account with my particular kit, is that this was supposedly kit #1 according to Mick - and so some of the little "nigglies" that I see in my kit (e.g. the nose-gear has no steering mechanism - I will need to make up my own) are to be expected to some degree - See my BVM Super Balsa Bandit review where I found and reported a number of small errors - even though BV totally has his act together and can put more time & effort into his kits since he's looking at considerably higher volume than Mick, there were still a number of little things that were wrong in that very first batch of kits. In other words, I don't know how representative my #1 kit is of the others.

Obviously, since I'm not finished yet, there may be some patches of quicksand still ahead of me, but - if I had known, when I was getting ready to buy this kit, what I know now - would I still have bought the kit ? Defintely, yes. I certainly wouldn't have bothered with the drop-tank kit, and I would have looked around to see if I could find another source of the landing gear, but I'd still have bought the rest because there's still more that I like about this kit than there is that I dislike about it. Sadly, some people here can't see that, and repeatedly focus only on the negative aspects that I report... but such is life. I don't whitewash any of the reviews / build-threads I do - I tell it just like I see it, and I've paid good money for the right to have my opinion ; others are of course perfectly welcome to disagree and post their own praise for things that I don't like, or their own disdain for stuff that I do like. This is, after all, a discussion forum - not an agreement forum - and IMO it's better for customers (or prospective customers) to see multiple opinions than none at all.

OK - just don't hold your breath. I seem to have so many other things going on, that I simply haven't spent any time on the Hunter for ages. The fact that I just changed jobs a few days ago promises to further add to the list of things that keeps me out of my workshop...

For the areas that you say you are unhappy about - feel free to post details (or if you don't have Nomex underwear, send me a PM) - if its anything that I've come across and have some ideas on I'd be happy to share. Mick may also be able to make suggestions here.

Later,
Gordon