Yesterday the basic work has been completed: wings were mounted, as well as the stabilizers to the tail. The latter are supposed to come from an F-86H, "de-swepts". Since I could not find any good indication what this would have meant in real life, I went for my own solution. I found a pair of F-86A stabilizers, but found these to be too small, lacking depth. Then I tried a single F-86D stabilizer as an alternative (which has a bigger span), but it still looked goofy and much too fragile Then I tried a pair of MiG-15 stabilizers, and their shape and sweep looked much more conclusive on the T-2 tail, even though a little too small. Eventually I used the wings from an 1:144 Tornado (Dragon), used the MiG-15 parts as sweep benchmark and the F-86D for the span, tailored the tips, and had a pair of suitable stabilizers for the American Spirit!

1:72 Cornell/Jackson Special "American Spirit" Reno Racer - WiP by
dizzyfugu, on Flickr
I also mounted the landing gear - and it looks as weid as expected. The T-2 track is really wide (18.5' in real life), and the struts are very long, too. The F-100 front leg was cut down, but I kept a slight nose-up stance in order to protect the propeller. And the wheelbase is just a mere 6'!!! But this matches the description of the real design, so I must have come close to Cornell's original idea, placing the front wheel well behind the engine, under the wing roots.
This morning I also completed the propeller, added three P-3 blades to the C-130 spinner. This looks menacing!


1:72 Cornell/Jackson Special "American Spirit" Reno Racer - WiP by
dizzyfugu, on Flickr
BTW: the whole thing strongly reminds me of the ill-fated (but much bigger) Curtiss F15C (which also carried a jet engine under its tail boom):

I am still not 100% certain concerning the paint scheme, and it becomes time to settle on that. I will probably add an overall coat of white primer first, creating a good basis for further work and also in order to check the surface of this putty build. I somewhat favor something like this, Bicentennial-ish:
