This is the 1/48th CollectAire kit. The fuselage is split in the middle and the front half is not too bad except for numerous pinholes. Measures out fairly well. The rear half is a disaster. To begin with, the fin is between two and three times too thick and the wrong shape, particularly at the base. I just cut the whole thing off, thinned it out, and reattached it. However, before I did that, I had to correct to length of the fuselage engine tailpipemuch to short and too big in diameter. I should also note that the entire rear fuselage is 1/8" wider than the front, so while the fin is off, and the tailpipe is in progress, the rear fuse has to be narrowed to fit the front. This, of course, also throws off the rear main wheel well, etc., etc. To top all else off, the pinholes and just plain holes were numerous; almost every piece had them, and on things like gear doors and other thin structures they aren't easy to fix. Just for the record, my references for all these faults are a thick file I have on the XB51 which I acquired way back in the late 60s from the duplicate files of the NASM (Most of that information is now available in the new Ginter book on the bird). The wings weren't too bad but by the time I got there I was so tired of the whole thing I kind of rushed them through just to get the thing off the workbench. Anyway, after all that was done, the model was finished with Alclad (actually the old Spray N Platewonderful stuff). The kit decals weren't too bad except that they were dead flat with very prominent film, so I had to make a few modifications.

Bottom line; For a $40.00 kit, not too bad; for a $180.00 kit, major disaster.