Starting a DC3.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

I watched the carb heat thread with fascination as it evolved into a pissing match that ended in the inevitable locked thread.

So lets see who can describe how to wrap a rope around the prop dome of a DC3 to get it started if the starter or battery has failed.

Be descriptive so we will be able to visualize the correct method as we do not want the rope to slip and not rotate the engine.

I am aware that this is maybe just a tad out of the realm of private pilots.....but there are some true experts on here who I bet will see this as a new soap box from which to rail the crowd. :E

[BackPacker]

Does wrapping a rope around the prop dome (you mean that spinner-type thing which houses the CS hardware?) really give you enough leverage to turn the prop, without damaging the dome? And how many revolutions of the prop should you reasonably be able to expect before the engine catches?

Oh, and is this with passengers watching, so do you have to keep your cool and look like you know what you're doing, or not?

[S-Works]

I normally just use the wife's bra. We always hand swing our DC3, it's the way real men do it, starter motors are for girls blouses......

[egbgstudent]

I think that we are all missing the point here.
The real question surely is...

Do you have the carb heat applied for the said rope starting procedure?:bored:

[Chuck Ellsworth]

The dome is the part that contains the gears that twist the blades and it can be used to wrap a rope around as a method of starting the engine.


really give you enough leverage to turn the prop, without damaging the dome?

You would need a sledge hammer to damage the dome.


And how many revolutions of the prop should you reasonably be able to expect before the engine catches?

That depends on a lot of factors such as temperature and how you have primed it.


Oh, and is this with passengers watching, so do you have to keep your cool and look like you know what you're doing, or not?

In cases where you use this method to start one the last thing on your mind is what the passengers think.

By the way a snow machine makes for less work in the starting process....now lets let the experts have a go at this. :E

[BRL]

I cannot see the point of locking a thread while leaving the personal insults still intact for all to see.

Sometimes we don't have time to go through a thread and delete individual posts. This was the case with that thread, just had enough time to have a quick look and close it. Later on when I have time I will have another look and do some gardening and re-open it.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

Chuck not sure what you want the experts to have a go at?

Clearly describe the best method of wrapping the rope on the dome so as to have minimum slip when pulling on said rope to turn the engine over. :ok:

[BISH-BASH-BOSH]

Why waste your time, with the fabled rope start, when all you have to do is grab the cranking handle from the flight deck, to wind up the inertia starter, port eng, inbd side, aft of gills, if i remember G-AMPO, was fitted with this system, and yes i used it in anger.

[BackPacker]

now lets let the experts have a go at this.

Nay, come on, let the armchair amateurs have a go first. (That would be me then... I've never hand-swung an engine, let alone use external machinery to start an engine.)

I'd wrap the rope around the dome maybe six times or so, obviously in the direction you want the prop to turn, and making sure that the second, third turn and so on are all over the bit of rope from the first turn so that the rope is stuck on for the first few turns by friction alone, but comes loose automatically later on. (You do NOT want the rope to stay on with the engine catching, so no knots - although first picture of a snowplough twisted around the prop would be worth something too.)

Then do the pre-engine start things as usual, including suitable priming for the climate (if there's a snowplough involved, I somehow don't think we're talking tropical climate here). At the time where you would normally engage the starter, tell the snowplough to rev it. The snowplough is of course attached to the other end of the rope, probably with a quick-release knot or a man with an axe standing by (or both), and runs sideways away from the plane, just a little forward of the prop arc, so that the rope doesn't get caught in the blades.

Most likely you'll try with about six turns or so around the hub first. Three to create enough friction so the rope doesn't slip straight away, and three to rev the engine to starting speed. If that doesn't work, gradually increase the number of turns around the hub.

It's no different from hand starting an outboard motor, really. Just a tiny bit bigger.

[Pace]

Chuck

Personally I would not have a clue :) and wouldnt really care as will never get to fly one anyway ;( finally sounds like too much effort! A jet is a lot easier you just press a button loads of great sounds and it does it all for you :)

Pace

[dont overfil]

How about? A knot on the rope layed on the hub, once round the root of a blade then about four turns round the hub (trapping the knotted end). The other end of the rope wrapped round the snowploughs winch and off you go like starting a small outboard.
For your personal safety get some other fool to operate the winch.
DO.

[Chuck Ellsworth]

Why do you refer to it as the " fabled rope start " BISH-BASH-BOSH?

Are you saying it will not work?

[Pilot DAR]

I could not use the rope method to start. The propellers (if turned) will not turn over the engines.

I did look around yesterday for carb heat controls in it, but there are none.

To start, I check the area, push a nice little button, watch a bunch of instruments, and when one says 16%, put the fuel on.

Pilot DAR

[Lister Noble]

When we were flying the Berlin Airlift we came across some gorillas that had escaped from a local zoo,they had in fact been performers in a travelling circus and were usewd to performing unusual acts..
With a lot of patience and even more bananas we trained them to form a chain and hand swing the props.
We could never train them to move away once the engine started so we quickly ran out of this resource.
;)

[dont overfil]

Christ! G-EMMA. You've got me believing that's in the manual!
DO.

[stevef]

I've never been involved with 1830 rope starting but I've heard a few bar tales about it being done by our pilots (this is going back a few years; I've forgotten the technique). Nothing that couldn't be solved after a bit of experimentation. Probably a short fore and aft lay on the dome followed by rotational wraps. I'm not so sure that it would be a good idea to wrap the rope around a blade root!
I haven't seen inertia starters and their associated hand-starting gear on Daks for many years - they all seem to have direct drive units now. Shame - it used to be quite satisfying to start one single-handed

[JW411]

I don't think I have ever seen a DC-3 being rope swung but I did witness (on two occasions) a C-46 at Salalah successfully having an engine started using a piece of sacking, a long rope and six locals exiting stage right as fast as they could go.

If I remember correctly the C-46 had R2800s so they were a tad larger than the R1830s in the DC-3.

[Mike Cross]

G-EMMA's method
http://www.douglasdc3.com/prop/proprope.gif

Rest of it's on this page. (http://www.douglasdc3.com/prop/prop.htm)

Chuck's method is alluded to on this page (http://www.centercomp.com/cgi-bin/dc3/story?1302).On the same flight at one of the airports we landed at one of the engines wouldn't start so the French pilots wrapped a rope around the propeller hub and worked at turning the engine over. This was the first time I had ever seen something like this. Eventually the engine came to life and we flew off.

[The Flying Pram]

A jet is a lot easier you just press a button loads of great sounds and it does it all for you

Loads of great sounds? From a Jet??? Come on now, impressive they might be, but no Jet or Turbofan will ever sound remotely as good as a big piston engine at full whack. And older jets didn't have the luxury of FADEC, so there's a bit more than just pushing a button and letting it do it all for you.

As to the original question, I'm sure I've seen film of a Gloster Gladiator or similar being "Hand Swung" at Old Warden by several guys forming a human chain - one poor sod had to hold the prop blade with one arm whilst the others were trying to pull him apart with his other arm!

[javelin]

And.... if you want to get into a p!ssing contest, here is from my Bro, ex Sharjah, Ballykelly etc etc

Sandbagging a Shackleton.

Take one Avro (beautiful, British name) and a dead battery.

Rope, sandbags, willing - other ranks - and some guile.

Set........... Contact........... Let Go !

click, whirrrr, clunk, clunk, bang, po, pop, bang - repeat......

It started, well f%*k me !

:ok:

[Chuck Ellsworth]

This is going real well...no pissing matches yet. :D

I'm off to Newfoundland for a week so will not have regular internet access...

....but before I go here is another one.

I was stuck all by myself on a remote lake in northern Quebec many moons ago with a Beech 18 on floats and a fu.ked starter.

I managed to start it with a rope....

So churn that one around and figure out how I did it.:E

[Pace]

>was stuck all by myself on a remote lake in northern Quebec many moons ago with a Beech 18 on floats and a fu.ked starter.

I managed to start it with a rope....

So churn that one around and figure out how I did it.<

Chuck

Let me guess !

you tied the long rope to the back of a speed boat and the other end to the Beech18 on floats.

Speed boat careered down the lake at full throttle with the aircraft in tow on the rope.

On reaching rotation speed you took to the air and then did an airstart.

You then became the tow plane with now the speedboat attached to you.

You and the speed boat were seen climbing into the distance with behind the speedboat a water skier who you both had forgotten about who himself was also attached to a rope.

The water skier caught his ski as you all cleared the distant shoreline on a washing line outside some busty blondes home.

You, The speedboat, the water skier and thirty yards of washing line draped with all manner of naughty underwear vanished into the distant yonder.

Did I get it right ? ;)

Pace

[Pace]

Flying pram

>Loads of great sounds? From a Jet??? Come on now, impressive they might be, but no Jet or Turbofan will ever sound remotely as good as a big piston engine at full whack. And older jets didn't have the luxury of FADEC, so there's a bit more than just pushing a button and letting it do it all for you.<

My response was humorous not serious :-) but having said that I think a jet engine starting up sounds great.

Iin the one I currently fly we do not have the luxury of fadec. No there is not a lot to do other than pressing the button :-) Moving the thrust levers and monitoring the start sequence.

Pace

[Pilot DAR]

During my Twin Otter flying of long ago, it was a stated procedure to start the engines with the propellers tied to the wing struts by a rope. I was never in a situation where we had to do this. I think that the manual mentioned something about untying them before attempting takeoff.

Pilot DAR

[Final 3 Greens]

Use an elephant to pull the rope.

If an elephant is not available, substitue a pair of any appropriately sized beasts.

[youngskywalker]

Incidentaly it's not outwith the realms of the average Pilot to be able to afford to fly one. I looked into it recently and there are quite a few places in the USA and elsewhere in the world where one can either just pay to have a quick shot or indeed do a course, either a full type rating or just a second in command rating, it wasnt that expensive really. I fully intend doing so as it will look great in the logbook, even if you never really get to fly one again, it's a real classic that won't be around forever. It's got to be up there with a Tiger Moth, Chipmunk, Bulldog etc for aircraft to fly at least once.

[Mike Cross]

It was Lac du Delasse on the Montmorency River.

Chuck tied one end of the rope to the aircraft and let it drift downstream. When he got to the top of the Montmorency Falls (which are higher than Niagara) he jumped off and tied the other end of the rope to a tree. He then set himself up, engines primed and ready to go. Once he was ready he untied the rope and let the aircraft drift over the falls. He pointed the nose down and once he'd picked up airspeed he airstarted the engines - simple really.

http://www.wordtravels.com/dbpics/countries/Quebec/quebec-Montmorency.jpg

[sycamore]

Chucks` little problem; Ans.1. remove fu..ed starter-assuming and being a professional bush pilot you will have tools...! Start good engine,and set low idle;remove starter from good engine,and fit to other engine; start other engine;recalculate wt.& c of g for starter removal,and complete all paperwork; the rope ?should have been tied to you and aircraft in case you fell in water !!
Ans 2; A la DC3,with variation,or a twist !; prime and set `bad` engine,run rope around spinner/hub in direction of rotation;run and secure other end under tension around good engine hub; leaving fuel/mags `off` on good engine,crank it over,so it may start `bad` engine. Repeat as necessary,until a) it starts b) you`re knackered c) the batteries are flat.
Ans3. You`ve just remembered the `hand-cranking` handle that you have /or,sod`s law, you`ve left behind !!
Ans 4.You could start the good engine,taxy out in the lake ,and attempt to go round in circles to get a windmill start !!

[5 Greens]

I have actually swung a Dak prop Twice! Port engine starter motor failed on a night mail run. Used a brown line, put a hoop in the end & rotated the prop backwards to the 11 o' clock position. Did a dummy run to make sure it came off in the 4 O'clock position, it did! Manually pulled 9 blades whilst captain primed the engine. Put the line back on got a second Volunteer to help run with the line, Thumbs up mags on pulled & started 1st time!

Did it all again at destination so we could get home, started second attempt!

To start a Dak with fuel boost pump failure? Easy get a bottle full of Avgas from the fuel tank drains, sit astride the engine & pour into engine air intake whilst captain turns engine. When finnished give the thumbs up & quickley jump off the wing as the captain turns the mags on!

[Plewis]

While working in Oman with the Sultan of Oman's Air Force, I was sitting in the Dakota, waiting to return to Bait al Falaj. Number one engine had been stated but nothing from number two. Duff starter was the problem. To my astonishment, the Airwork Services guys, after some discussion with the flight deck, came along with a rope. They wound it round the spinner and tied the other end to the back of a Land Rover. With the mags on an a signal from the flight deck, the Land Rover pulled slowly away, turning the prop. The engine fired up and all was well. I got back to the quite end of Oman in time for te.

[Geriaviator]

https://s20.postimg.org/blo10zsj1/berryaubac12sqn.jpg

I'm not sure that winding a rope round the spinner would give sufficient leverage for manual starting, but the rope trick is easy when you know how. The method was well known from WW1 and used when the Huck vehicle-mounted starter was not available.

In winter 1939/40 my father was serving with 142 Sqn at Berry-au-Bac, France, in temperatures below -10C. With the squadron on readiness, the Merlin engines in their Fairey Battles had to be run every hour to prevent the oil from solidifying. Starting was by trolley-acc, a bank of batteries on a small handcart, charged by a small generator which could not keep up with so many starts. The engine was primed and pulled through nine blades by hand to suck the mixture into the cylinders, then a rope lashed to a leather cap placed over the propellor tip. At the call “Three on the cap ... contact ... two-six, HEAVE” three airmen would pull the rope to turn the engine, the cap being thrown clear as the Merlin fired.

[Maoraigh1]

Thread drift. What was the origin of "two six"? I heard that phrase about 1960, from an old guy, at a gliding club, but the ex RAF WW2 aircrew never used it.

[bingofuel]

"Two, six, heave" is a phrase used to coordinate seamen's pulling. It derives from the orders used in firing shipboard cannons in the British Royal Navy. The team of six men had numbered roles. After loading, it was the task of the men numbered two and six to heave (in a coordinated fashion) the cannon out the gunport for firing, using simple effort for a light cannon or a tackle apiece for larger ones. Shanties not being countenanced in the Royal Navy, "two, six, heave" was pressed into service whenever seamen needed to pull in a coordinated fashion, such as braces and halyards

[Sir Niall Dementia]

Arthur Whitlock in his brilliant Memoirs Of An Airline Pilot described how to pull start a Dak and showed it in one of his stunning sketches.

I loaned my copy to someone a few years ago and never got it back. It's out of print now, and I keep praying Amazon will have it some time.

SND

[Pozidrive]

https://s20.postimg.org/blo10zsj1/berryaubac12sqn.jpg

I'm not sure that winding a rope round the spinner would give sufficient leverage for manual starting, but the rope trick is easy when you know how. The method was well known from WW1 and used when the Huck vehicle-mounted starter was not available...

...or when the Huck starter wouldn't start?

[blue up]

I seem to recall a story about a Dak in North Africa at the end of WW2. With one engine dead it was decided to spin the one good engine up to start it running about the flat desert in a wide circle until it had enough speed to allow the equivalent of a V1 cut by locking the tailwheel so that it ran straight. Probably a load of borelocks but quite a good story.

The other tale is from Ron Webster (who designed and built his own radial engines in his shed) was that he used to struggle to hand-prop the 7-cyl engine so he would whip out 3 plugs and spin it over just firing on the other 4 until the engine was warm enough to start more easily. Lateral thinking?

[Heathrow Harry]

Somewhere there 's a picture of a whole bunch of passengers pulling a long line round a ?KLM? DC-3 engine somewhere in the Dutch East Indies in the '40's

there's also a painting of passengers hand starting the "Blue Bonnet Belle" somewhere very cold

https://www.magnoliabox.com/products/crew-hand-starting-the-port-engine-of-the-dc-3-bluebonnet-belle-trf100004m

[Fantome]

Nice, that nine years on Chuck's original brian teaser gets another airing. (Pace's description of an air start for a Beech 18 off a lake is an absolute ball-tearer.)

At the Avalon Airshow in -94 in Victoria near Melbourne there was a rope start done with a minimum of fuss. The Navy DAK from Nowra was there with the right engine's starter motor kaput. The late Jack Curtis who flew for Dakota National Air in Sydney was there too. There was nothing old Jack did not know about the ins and outs of radials . (He was on Wellingtons in the Second World War and then after the war flew DC-3s for TAA over many years. ) Jack saw the sailors were stuck so he went over and offered to help. With twenty yards of half inch white rope and a hefty little tarmac tug he got the old girl going first time.

Jack went to the great holding pattern in the sky a couple of years ago -

http://www.pprune.org/pacific-general-aviation-questions/554478-vale-captain-jack-curtis.html

[First_Principal]

Arthur Whitlock in his brilliant Memoirs Of An Airline Pilot described how to pull start a Dak and showed it in one of his stunning sketches.

I loaned my copy to someone a few years ago and never got it back. It's out of print now, and I keep praying Amazon will have it some time.

SND - I see there are a couple of copies available from AbeBooks, not sure you'll like the price though!

Ah, having had a further look around I see a much more reasonably priced copy at the Aviation Bookshop (Kent), if it's still available...

FP.

[B2N2]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ecosb5mSDwo

[Geriaviator]

Nice video, but I would be concerned at the crushing loads placed on backplate and alloy spinner. If the spinner distorts and contacts the blade it will notch the point of highest stress resulting in a scrap blade and prop overhaul, assuming the blade doesn't separate on first flight after the rope start :eek: I think the cap on the blade tip would be safer when a spinner is fitted.

[Shaggy Sheep Driver]

Sir Naill:

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Behind-Cockpit-Door-Arthur-Whitlock/dp/0863037453

Great book! I have a copy - and no, you can't borrow it!

[Cornish Jack]

Re. engine starts, we night stopped in N Burma in the 60s at the same time as a Pakistani Grumman Goose on private charter. We were both parked on psp. Next morning the Goose had a flat battery, The Capt deputed one of his pax to man the (roof mounted) throttles while he hand swung the starboard. He managed to reach the higher prop by balancing on a domestic chair placed on the psp!!! Took a couple of goes but eventually rewarded with blue smoke and satisfying rasps. UNFORTUNATELY, the pax deputed to throttle duty got the instructions 'arse-backards' and pushed instead of pulling. The gallant Capt's response was instinctive, extraordinary and, probably, unrepeatable - he went between prop tips and fuselage and reached through the side window to throttle back!!! (For the full flavour of that, check the space available for that manoeuvre!!) I saw it, I stared in amazement and can, even today, relive it but it doesn't seem right!:eek:)
PS Gallant Capt, indeed. He was the same guy, with the same aircraft who put down on a very limited jungle river to pick up a Javelin navigator who had banged out en route to Singapore.

[SpannerInTheWerks]

I normally just use the wife's bra

Not all women are that well endowed ... !!! :}