Has any company ever put out a stand-alone kit of a radial engine? I’ve always liked the design of a radial engine and can envision how cool it would be to build a simple, but large scale kit of a single engine, including wiring and such. I’m not even sure what scale, maybe 1/16 or 1/8 maybe? That might be too large though. The only similar thing I can think of was a couple kits I remember from about 20 years ago of ejection seats, or it might have been the entire cockpit. I think one was a cockpit from an F16, the other might have been an F4. Can’t even remember who made them. Something analogous would be the “Visible V8” kit but one would hope a radial engine kit would not be quite as lame looking.
I think Williams brothers put out a Le Rhone or Oberusal rotary engine in 1/6…
There is the old Revell (ex Renwall) Visible Wasp engine, but this is now a rarity and quite pricey. There’s a few listed on Ebay at the moment. There’s a youtube video or two of one of these working.
The (1/16?) cockpits you are thinking of were by Esci (originally) and were for the F-16A and F-104.
There is also the Revell kit #8881 1/12 scale Wright Cyclone Engine.
Hasegawa makes a Clerget 9B (130 HP ) in 1/8 scale.
http://www.hasegawausa.com/product-pages/hsgs1986.html
I’d like to see companies like Trumpeter or Airfix issue kits of just the 1/24th scale aircraft engines that are included with the aircraft kits.
Thanks for the replies guys. Duh! I did a quick search Google (should have done that first) and turned up a Williams Brothers kit of the Pratt and Whitney Wasp R1340 in 1/8 scale. Another link I followed also turned up the Revell 1/4 scale engine which no longer appears to be available except maybe on that online auction site. I think I’ll look into that Wms. Bros. kit - says it has over 300 pcs. which probably makes for a fun, involved build. I’ve always liked the look of a radial engine and been fascinated by the internal mechanics of one. I wonder if anyone makes a kit of an inline engine like say the Rolls Royce Merlin? Those Esci kits always looked like they’d be a fun build but over 25 years ago when I first saw them in my LHS they were always priced out of my budget (being only in high school at the time and probably no job either).
If my memory is correct, the great modeler Bob Steinbrunn did one in an old issue of FSM. As always, he did a tremendous job with it and it would be a great research source to find. It should be possible to still locate the article.
Gary
It might be in this as well?
While not ‘large scale’, Roden has several radial, inline and V- engine kits in 1/32 scale.
Monosoupape 9B 9-cylinder radial
Mercedes D.111
Oberursel Ur. 11
Hispano-Suiza 8ab
Wolseley Viper
among others.
Most kits include prop and display mount. I have yet to get one, but plan on doing so soon. Other Roden kits I’ve assembled have been detailed, albeit, sometimes a bit difficult to assemble.
Gene Beaird,
Pearland, Texas
There’s always scratch building with metal…dunno where they get blueprints…:
http://baemclub.shutterfly.com/8