Okay, here we go again.
I found a model of Tbilisi Sameba Cathedral at 3d warehouse, the only name I could see was Altun Gumbatov so I have to assume that is the author. There is a Collada file there for download that thankfully could be opened in Blender and converted into a file I was able to open in gmax.
The description at 3d warehouse said 6.143 polygons, however, when I finally opened it in gmax it showed 25271.
I guess there is something in the conversion process between programs that increases the poly count, even so the original for IL-2 was much more than allowed and anyway, the intention was to build it myself I just needed some kind of drawing or template, what better than the model itself.
So, in between listening to a football match and doing a few other things I spent a few short sessions making a start:
As you can see the sketch version is on the left and really is a beautiful model, my firsts attempts to the right.
My model will be a much simpler version, most of the detail by necessity will have to come from textures although I will most likely cut in a few doorways just to add a little variety.
This might take a while, stay tuned as they say.
Wishing you all the very best, Pete.