After struggling to get a grip on how to set up UV's in Houdini, I got some actually painting work done on the mesh. I'd like to thank everyone here for suggestions on dealing with the various problems as they cropped up.

Very nice. I'm no military/airplane buff .. is this a real plane design? or something of your own creation? I'd love to see it flying through some clouds, with a little sonic boom or something

Nope, not a real plane . It's a bastard mix of the Mig 31 Firefox (from the movie Firefox), an F-22 Raptor, and engines from the SR-71 Blackbird, along with my own tweaks here and there (i.e. the swept forward wings). At some point I will come back to this and finish off the detailing and texturing.