Exotic ways to start an engine, part 4

"Cé hé sin" (michael-m-mouse)
09/27/2016 at 18:11 • Filed to: Planelopnik, Starting

Got a flying machine? Need to start the engine(s)? You’ve got choices.

1. With a piece of rope.

The Messerschmitt Me 262 had two jet engines which like its modern equivalents were started using an auxiliary power unit. This one though was a two stroke engine which lived in the nacelle at the front of each engine. Usually this was started electrically but if the flow of electrons let you down you could use a recoil starter, just like a lawn mower. You can see the ring that you had to pull right in the middle. So there you have it. Start your jet fighter with a length of string.

2. By windmilling.

Got a glider? Tired of running out of thermals and not making it home? You need a glider with a range extender, a small two stroke engine which will keep you in the air a while longer. For the sake of low weight, this may not have a starter. Instead you extend it as in the picture and go into a slight dive, hoping that the windmill effect will start your engine. All going well, it will. All going less well, you start the process with insufficient altitude and then concentrate on getting the engine going whilst paying too little attention to the imminent arrival of terra firma.

3. With the aid of two beefy chaps

Don’t trust electrons to start your flying machine? Just engage two people like this and give each their own starting handle. They’ll have you going in a moment, or several.

DISCUSSION (13)

Sam > Cé hé sin
09/27/2016 at 18:20

Don’t forget about the Buick Wildcat 401s and later LS-7s of the AG-330 SR-71 Start Carts. Literally just two unmuffled V-8s, connected by a drive belt, cranking the engines to life.

http://www.wvi.com/~sr71webmaster/ag330_sr.htm

HammerheadFistpunch > Sam
09/27/2016 at 18:24

I’ve seen the starter carts in person, but I’ve never figured out the actual connection with the engine.

jimz > Cé hé sin
09/27/2016 at 18:26

And the sound effect used for the Millennium Falcon conking out in the original Star Wars movies was the inertia starter of an old airplane.

Sam > HammerheadFistpunch
09/27/2016 at 18:32

Apparently they have a driveshaft that extends vertically from the door near the control panel, into the bottom of the nacelle.

HammerheadFistpunch > Sam
09/27/2016 at 18:33

Thats what they say, but I couldn’t find its location on the starter cart of the J58 itself. I don’t disbelieve it, I just can’t find it...or maybe I DO disbelieve it. Maybe the sound of 2 unmuffled wildcats was to cover up the noise of an alien breathing life into the J58s

Sam > jimz
09/27/2016 at 18:33

Can you imagine doing that during an actual fighter scramble? Those guys must have had enough upper arm strength to bend steel.

Sam > HammerheadFistpunch
09/27/2016 at 18:37

Here’s a snazzy graphic -

Kinja'd!!!

It’s the little floppy door on the top in the images on that Web page about the carts.

HammerheadFistpunch > Sam
09/27/2016 at 18:39

Im still going with aliens.

Sam > HammerheadFistpunch
09/27/2016 at 18:41

It was probably aliens.

TheRealBicycleBuck > Cé hé sin
09/27/2016 at 19:18

You missed the single-bladed old-fart start.

jimz > HammerheadFistpunch
09/27/2016 at 20:29

back in the ‘60s, they didn’t have electric motors which were both powerful enough and fast enough to spin a gas turbine engine up to self-sustaining speed.

see, a gas turbine is pretty much a variable-compression-ratio engine. the faster the engine runs, the higher its compression (pressure) ratio is. but you need to be able to crank a gas turbine up to the point where it can fire and run itself. in the early days, all we had were turbojets and they needed a couple hundred horsepower just to start.

HammerheadFistpunch > jimz
09/27/2016 at 20:59

Yes, this part I know. I was referring to being able to see the physical interface...still think it was aliens though

Lokiparts > jimz
11/21/2018 at 10:42

Now I am imagining Han or Chewie in the back of the Falcon hand cranking it trying to get it to start.