1:48 Bentley BR2

The end of an engine era

Walter Owen Bentley, the same man whose name the winning cars from Le Mans later carried, designed a pair of rotary engines with aluminum cylinders during the war. The BR2 was the second of them and at the same time the largest: nine cylinders, a displacement of over twenty-five liters and roughly two hundred thirty horsepower. Above that limit the rotary concept could no longer go, because the inertial forces of the turning block of cylinders ran up against their ceiling. The BR2 thus closes a chapter that the small French Omega had opened nine years earlier.

The Sopwith Snipe and what came next

The best known carrier of the engine became the Sopwith Snipe fighter, which reached the fighting only in the fall of 1918. After the armistice the Royal Air Force flew it for several more years and the BR2 remained in service as the last rotary powerplant of the RAF.

What the casting provides

The miniature captures the massive cylinders with their pronounced finning, the front cover and the plug leads. The material is casting resin, which holds sharp edges better than injection-molded plastic and does not create parting seams across the whole diameter of the engine.

The build step by step

Release the parts from the casting remnants, level the faces and free the surface of grease. Then come the primer, a matte metallic shade and finally accenting of the edges with a dry brush. Anyone building the Snipe with an exposed front end will appreciate that the detail does not hide under a cowling. Before gluing it into the fuselage, try dry how deep the engine sits and whether the axis of the propeller lines up with it, because a resin part tends to be somewhat more massive than the plastic original from the kit.