1:32 Ansaldo Balilla Polish Service PREMIUM

The SPA engine and the wooden frame

Under the cowling of the Ansaldo A.1 worked a water-cooled SPA inline six-cylinder, that is a power unit derived from the automobile designs of the Turin factory, which at the time was building mainly trucks. Roughly two hundred twenty horsepower made the aircraft a fast machine, though at the cost of a heavy nose. The fuselage was wooden and covered with plywood, the lifting surfaces fabric-covered and braced with wires, and the armament consisted of a pair of machine guns firing through the propeller disc.

The Polish episode

The machines reached Poland shortly after the independent state came into being, and sharp service awaited them at once. In the war with Soviet Russia their speed and their sturdiness in a steep descent were valued more than agility in a sustained turn. They lasted in the air arm's inventory even after peace was signed and ended their days with training units as a transitional type for future fighter pilots.

What the PREMIUM label means

In this range the designation PREMIUM denotes a more richly equipped version of the same real subject. The builder gets the same aircraft in 1:32, so the finished model comes out at a span of around twenty-four centimeters and a length three centimeters less. The work on a biplane from 1918 falls into two unequal parts: the assembly of the fuselage and the wings themselves is a matter of one evening, whereas the bracing, the turnbuckles and the fine fittings of the cockpit take several times that long.

Where the name came from

Balilla was the nickname of a boy from Genoa who, according to tradition, threw a stone at an Austrian soldier in 1746 and thereby set off an uprising. In Italy the name became a symbol of courage and was then carried not only by this aircraft but also by the well-known small car of the 1930s.