On myyoure quite welcome Ang and thanks for the credit! I love seeing what other people do with my models. I get the illusion as if someone was casually walking by with camera in hand when all of a sudden they turn and see an aircraft going through maneuvers and clicked a picture and caught the moment frozen in time. No posing, just instant reflex, just as a photograph would be taken in the spur of the moment with little opportunity on the photographers part for artistic composition, one of those gotcha moments. I think its great that you as an artist, can capture and deliver that moment. Missing that centrality of compositional focus, esthetically speaking, its as beautiful as any warplane going through maneuvers from a distance would be. If on the other hand you depicted the warplane up close and personal, say, breaking the sound barrier, just barely skimming over the oceans surface displacing and spewing mountains of water in its wake, you would then get a different reaction. I see no problem with the birds since everyone knows intuitively that birds are smaller than planes and to see them there only means that they are much closer to the viewer than the plane is. Perhaps they were startled by the buzzing of the jet, or the breaking of the sound barrier. The trees and the sky work is fantastic and really lends credibility to the jet, since any aircraft aficionado would instantly know that such an aircraft doesnt really exist. If you wanted contrails then perhaps blending some narrow, slender cylinders with some transparent cloud texture as a contrail behind the wings and tail is possible, that is, if you really wanted contrails but I think that gets a bit tricky. I think the afterburner flame looks fine given the color of the sky for contrast, they often have a ting of blue in it, just a smidgen but I dont think its necessary. You could, you know, if you werent aware, ungroup the model in Bryce and subtract, or add for that matter, any piece you want. I think it looks good as is and comes quite close to the illusion of being photorealistic if that is, and I think it is what you were after.