I might have spotted another possible (very very minor) error of this kit.
It's this strip at the tip of the upper jaw box.
View attachment 801146View attachment 801147
It's not about the chipping, but the color.
In the promo photos depicting the initial state of the filming miniature, the strip looks red, whereas in the photos taken at exhibitions, it looks orange. The decal of this strip included in the kit resembles the latter.
I could think of several possibilities;
a) The original red strip fell off and was replaced by an orange one (which was probably when the chipping was applied).
b) The strip, which was originally red, became discolored to look orange.
c) The strip was always orange, but somehow (lighting conditions, mal colored printing etc.), they turned out looking red in the promo photos (in which case, Bandai's decal is correct).
I thought c) was least likely, so I made a red strip out of the decal sheet's Bandai logo to replace the orange one.
Another decal related detail I noticed is this strip.
Looking through the archival photos, I think this orange strip was an applied decal. The strip seems to have fallen off and doesn't exist in the present model.
There is no decal for this strip in the kit, although Bandai may have intentionally left this out, as with all the hash marks.
I have also made this out of a spare decal.
I have also noticed that the kit's decals for these strips do not seem to resemble their width very well, so I replaced them also.
I am making very slow progress lately, and am still working on the cockpit quadrant.