That JKA P-47 wasn't mine. (I did take the mid-air picture though. Mostly luck).

I'm not totally sure how he got the bright metal finish. I *think* he got some silver tape from JKA when he bougbht the kit. I'm pretty sure they sell it or used to sell it. Other than the canopy, I don't think there is any paint on that plane. If you want heatshrink, I think Ultracote might make a silver or something close. With a little thought you might be able to get away with no paint at all. (A lot of guys choose color schemes for scale combat planes that require no paint. Me, I dig camo schemes, so I am forever painting. More work, but I like the look).

Yes, you can just scuff up the tape or covering and paint. It works better with some paints than others. Since I like to paint with Laytex house paint, the primer really helps the paint grab. It doesn't help with fuel proofing at all, just with keeping the paint from pealing up off the plastic. If you can use some more fuel proof paints, when you'll have less trouble and won't need to prime. Demon's done more work with differnet kinds of paints than I have.

A lot of guys paint the canopy white or silver or black. Paint it on the inside, and you can use just about any kind of paint you want.

The Webra's are imported by Horizon, I think. I don't know if you can get them from their website, but one place I've bought them is quantum models. It's about the same price as an OS, but it doesn't come with a muffler. Since I run them with mousse cans, not getting the muffler isn't a big deal to me. Though if I fly that engine in 2548, I might have to go buy a couple Webra mufflers seperately.

A while back, Demon posted a really cool thread on here about how he mods the JKA kits to make them look better. I used a bunch of his ideas when I built mine a while back. The coolest ideas are making a plug and shrinking cowls out of soda bottles instead of using the coro cheeks, and putting in a little something to reinforce the fuse. The JKA kit uses coro on the outside to make the front of the fuse stronger, I think if you cut a curved back edge on it, the foam is less likely to fail right at the edge of the coro.