History

In keeping with the recent Austro-Hungarian kit and decal topics, here is the Karaya 1/48 aftermarket kit of the Austro Diamler 200hp inline six. Austro-Daimler was an Austrian Company that existed from 1899 until 1934. During the First World War, the 4,500 workers of Austro-Daimler contributed in large quantities to wartime production. This basic motor and its resulting upgrades were installed in late war Austro - Hungarian single seat fighters and two seat recon, bombers and observation aircraft. The 185, 200, or 225hp Austro-Daimler engines respectively all found their way into single & 2 seater airframes. Oeffag (Oesterreichische Flugzeug Fabrik A. G.) the Austrian Aircraft Manufacturing Company built 281 licence examples of their Albatros D.153 series. Here we see the life and death of airframe 153.16. It left the factory fitted with a 200hp Austro-Daimler straght six motor serial numbered 19.004. Bore and stroke were 135 X 175mm at 1500 rpms. It had 4 valves per cylinder and could climb to 6,500ft in six minute and thirty seconds. Maximum ceiling topped out at 18,000ft under optimal factory conditions.

The Karaya Kits

This Karaya 1/48th scale Austro - Daimler 200hp inline six kit is a very high quality resin kit. Along with their unique and rare WWI subjects, their complete aircraft kits includes several fine features such as custom photo-etch parts and water slide decals. Other unique Karaya aircraft kits features include embedded copper wire inserts in their strut assembly parts, making for stronger joints and precise placement much easier. Better than many plastic kits! The resin fuselage halves, for example, fit well together. The motor we will discuss here is altogether a good kit but there are some challenges.

While providing detailed motors for their equally detailed kit Karaya decided to sell these fine molded engine separately. I have included in the images a comparitive view of another injection molded item from a popular manufacturer. The Karaya motor is obviously longer and taller. The reason these items differ in size is due to the medium they are cast in.

The resin walls of the Karaya kits are thinner than mainstream injection molded plastic kits. This resin feature allows more accurate sizing for the interior parts.

Injection plastic tends to have thicker walls and therefore causes the larger interior parts to generally be slightly undersized.

The result is if you take the unmodified Karaya kit motor and bury it in the nose of a plastic kit, you will see that the cylinders tops are sitting too high. To fix this without dropping the crankcase you need cut the height of the cylinders down. This requires you to separate the cylinders from the crankcase. Then you remove the excess from the bottom of the cylinders, then reattach to the crankcase.

To build this and any other Karaya kit engine you really need to be familiar with the motor. There are no instructions provided. I had to contact Karaya to get a rough schematic (and it was hand drawn) to see their intentions. Though there are other manufacturer's kits with detailed instructions. (Hint.)

My special thanks to Herrn Koloman Mayrhofer for his kindness in allowing me to post his detail images of his Daimler motor.

When contacting manufacturers and publishers PLEASE mention you saw this review at Aeroscale.