1:48 Oberursel U.0

The seven-cylinder with which the era of fighters began

The Oberursel U.0 came about under license from the French Gnome Lambda, and the Motorenfabrik Oberursel company supplied it to the German army from 1914. Seven cylinders circled around a fixed crankshaft, cooled themselves in the stream of air and gave around eighty horsepower. The engine powered the Fokker M.5K and the Eindecker E.I and E.II derived from it, that is the machines on which machine-gun fire synchronized with the revolutions of the propeller first made its mark.

The workmanship of the casting

The unit is cast from polyurethane resin as a main block completed by several separate small parts. The cooling fins, the valve pushrods, the collector pipe and the propeller hub are all captured, that is shapes which on injection-molded plastic usually blur into an indistinct mass.

Before you reach for the glue

Separate the castings from the casting blocks with a saw or a sharp knife, sand the cut faces and wash everything in lukewarm soapy water, so that the remains of mold release disappear. Then comes a primer suitable for resin, and only after it the color itself. The metallic touch of the cylinders looks best when it is applied thinly and allowed to let a darker base show through.

Who the set is for

It will be appreciated by modelers who hinge the cowling open on a kit or who want to build the engine as an exhibit in its own right. The dimensions correspond to 1:48, so the casting fits the fuselages of ordinary kits of First World War aircraft. It pays to check beforehand how much of the engine will be visible once the fuselage is closed, and to plan accordingly how far you go with painting the inner parts.