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Think your CAR starts hard??!

No wonder they lost the war!
 
Was that an emergency starting system? cause it looks like the same plane, using a starter motor at the end of the clip.
that was insane! I can't imagine doing that in a hurry trying to sramble fighters while under attack!
Very cool video either way. I love seeing stuff like that.
 
And something else.... During the first "crank-up" they do, close your eyes, just listen, and think back to being a kid watching Loony Tunes. Does that not sound EXACTLY like the Tazmanian Devil as he's coming through the woods cutting through trees and rocks?
 
"Clear Prop" anyone? :nonono:
 
banjo, no thats not "an emergency staring system" what we didnt see in the second start attemt is that it had been cranked before the filming started. i would imagine during war time theyd go out and start them every couple of hours or so to keep the engines worm for easier starting, least thats what id do. :yesnod:
 
The two airplanes that start at the very end, the one with the green and white nosecone and the red nosecone- are P51 Mustangs, I think.
 
That was exhuasting just watching. Wasn't ther some fighters that had a starting system that used what appeared to be a huge shotgun shell?
 
Yes, I recall something like that too. In the movie "Flight of the Phoenix" they used something like shotgun shells to start the engine.....part of the drama of course was that they only had 3-4 shells...... :smile:
 
The end of the video were two P-51 Mustangs, which I believe the R/R Merlin engines had cartridge starters. The FW-190 is a great example of a flywheel starter. They were turning a flywheel that probably was in the neighborhood of 250-300 lbs, and once the guys up top were clear, the pilot engaged a clutch that would turn the engine over, or fail to in this case.

Texas, not only fighters, but also some bombers and cargo aircraft had provisions for a cartridge starter system. One nice thing about jet engines, is that if you need to cart start, you can get by with doing that to one engine, then cross bleeding to the other engines for starters, but for the sake of speed, you can cart start all four at the same time, just makes for a busy cockpit. Here's a pic of a KC-135 going through a "cart start."

cart-start.jpg


And a wiki

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffman_starter
 
Many WW II single engine planes with radial engines used the cartridge("shotgun shell") starter. It was light and simple.

The Russian MP-14 radial engine, (still built, I think and a reverse engineered copy of WW II Pratt and Whitney radials), uses compresssed air forced into the cylinders to crank over the engine. You will see this engine in ~YAK 52s~ and similar aerobatic planes. Starting is done by moving the camshaft out of normal phase with the crank while opening an air valve. The air supply requires something in the order of 2000 psi in these things!

We used to have a French WW I plane at one of our local airports (Trinca) that had a windup spring starter on the side. This was different than the ineria starter seen in the video above since in used a spring and not a flywheel. You used a large, removeable crank that worked like the key on one of those old windup toys. Stuck it in the side of the cowl. I forget what the plane was but it reminded me of a Jenny.

My plane has an " ~Armstrong Starter~ ". :laugh:
 
If you look around on Youtube, look up "Antonov AN-2 start". That's a 40s vintage Soviet biplane, with a copy of a Wright Cyclone radial engine. It uses a flywheel starter too, but it's electrically spun up. Reading an article on it, the battery only has enough juice to spin the flywheel up 3-4 times, and then you're stuck.
 
Thanks for the info Anthony, I knew the Spitfire originally used a cart start for the same R/R Merlin engine, I wasn't 100% sure about the P-51, if the entire powerplant and associated systems were transferred over.
 
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