1:48 Gnome 7 Lambda

The 80 for school and for the front

The seven-cylinder Lambda is the middle member of the Gnome trio: against the firstborn Omega roughly double the output, against the nine-cylinder Delta simpler and lighter. Eighty horses made it the most widespread powerplant of light machines at the beginning of the war. It carried two men and a supply of fuel, and at the same time it was a unit so undemanding to service that even a freshly trained mechanic at a field airfield could handle it. That is exactly why practically everyone who was learning to fly in Britain at the time met it.

The machines that flew with it

The best known carrier of this engine was the Avro 504 trainer in its early versions, through which whole generations of British pilots passed in training. The 80 was also carried by the light Morane-Saulnier reconnaissance monoplanes and the small Bristol fighters, where the advantage of low weight showed in full. It could not be throttled; the pilot tamed it with brief cuts of the ignition, and the descent was made with the machine essentially going down on its own momentum.

What to do with it on a model

1:48 is a scale where a separately cast powerplant makes sense mainly where the kit allows for an exposed front end of the airframe or where you want to open the cowling. A seven-cylinder star is thinner than a nine-cylinder one, so the background shows through between the cylinders and the valve gear stands out all the more. The castings are cleaned of the sprue gates, washed and glued with cyanoacrylate glue; in color, a dark metal with a warmer touch on the heads works well. A light wire suggesting an ignition lead makes a noticeable difference here too.