Originally Posted by
Jhieminga
Thank you @DaveReidUK ! To be honest, I had already decided in my head that it was most likely a Li-2, but I just think it's more fun to share puzzles like this with others.
Assuming a photo hasn't been 'flpped', a quick way to visually tell the difference between a C-47/Dakota and a Lisunov 2 is the main passenger entrance door. On the C-47/Dakota the passenger entrance door is on the left-hand side of the fuselage (integrated with a side-hinged cargo door, which the DC-3 did not have); on a Lisunov 2 the passenger door it is on the right, with a top-hinged cargo door on the left.
I haven't seen it mentioned here or in the thread referenced by
DaveReidUK, but there is another method of hand-starting the C-47/Dakota/DC-3 that I am aware of from my time flying these aircraft in the 1980s. On the rear bulkhead, near the passenger door, our fleet had a fairly hefty portable starting gadget, consisting of a crank handle attached to a small, lightweight gearbox. If needed, it was taken out of it's bulkhead mount and carried to the engine requiring it's use i.e. when the engine starter motor had gone u/s. A relatively short shaft protruded from the gearbox casing, on the side opposite the crank handle, and this shaft was inserted into a head-height receptacle on the side of the P&W Twin Wasp engine cowling, where it engaged with the large starter flywheel, leaving the gearbox and crankhandle hanging on the outside of the cowling.
The flywheel was usually spun up using battery power, by holding the cockpit starter switch against a spring. After a few seconds of flywheel spin up the starter switch was then pushed to it's opposite spring-loaded setting, which engaged a dog clutch mechanism between the spinning flywheel and the engine. Your properly primed Twin Wasp would then begin to turn over, chuff and burp a few times, and then roar into clattering life, often with a brief cloud of oil smoke, and usually helped along by some fast fettling of the mixture and throttle levers. When the engine was self-sustaining the starter switch was released, springing to it's default central position.
If the starter motor was u/s, the crank-handle-and-gearbox gadget replaced the starter motor for spinning up the flywheel. It took quite some cranking effort to get the heavy flywheel up to any where near the RPM achieved by the battery-powered starter motor, not helped by the head-height position of the gadget when attached to the engine side. It was considered a two-man job to do the cranking, if at all possible.
Once the cranking crew considered the flywheel was spinning as fast as they could physically get it to do so, they yelled at the person in the cockpit who would push the starter switch to engage the dog clutch, thereby beginning the noisy firing up. Bear in mind that during this procedure the cranking crew were standing pretty close to the 11 feet 6 inch diameter, three-bladed, Hamilton Standard prop, which would now begin whirring it's way up to idle RPM. They still needed to disengage the crank handle/gearbox lump from the engine cowling, and avoid the buzz-sawing prop, whilst being subjected to the smoke and rapidly increasing exhaust noise. If the engine didn't fire up at the first attempt, there would likely be a brief verbal trade of insults with the cockpit occupant, covering lack of starting skill, with a complaint about lack of suitable flywheel RPM being thrown back! 🤣
I consider myself fortunate never to have personally needed to undertake this manual starting method, as either crank team or cockpit occupant. However, I did once have an aircraft which was beginning to show signs of tired batteries. I only just got the first engine started from what was clearly a low RPM flywheel. The flight was initially intended to get the aircraft from a remote bush airstrip to a large airport about 40 minutes away, for refuelling, and then return to the bush airstrip. I was sure that if I shut down the engines for the refuel there was a very good chance the batteries would not have enough oomph to fire the first engine again. I decided the aircraft should be returned to home base for rectification, about 90 minutes away, but I still needed refuelling to make that logner journey.
After landing at the large airport the aircraft was parked with the engines remaing running, supervised by the copilot, whilst I ran to the refuelling station, explained the problem, and politely asked if they were willing to do an overwing bowser refuel with one (opposite side) engine running at a time, otherwise the aircraft would AOG in it's present spot. The supervisor surprised me by agreeing to the plan, so after careful briefing with the bowser crew, that is what we accomplished. One engine was shut down, the wing tanks fuelled on that side, then that engine restarted and the other engine shut down etc etc. Worked well, and we got the aircraft to home base where the batteries were swapped out, and we returned to the bush airstrip the same day, to continue operations. 👍🏻