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Old 1st Oct 2004, 19:45
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FlyingForFun

Why do it if it's not fun?
 
Join Date: Jul 2001
Location: Bournemouth
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I think the quesion has probably been answered already (although there's always room for more good advice), so I hope you don't mind me hijacking the thread with a couple of interesting hand-swinging scenarios?

The first was the J3 Cub on floats. Since they are (at the school where I did my floatplane flying) docked with the nose in towards the land, they need to be pushed away before starting the engine, hence no support from anyone on the ground. Push away, use the rudder to steer the aircraft to a reasonably safe position, then step out onto the float to swing the prop, whilst holding on to anything you can find so you don't take a swim. If it doesn't start first time, hope that you're not sailing backwards into anything that'll cause any damage! (Or alternatively turn the aircraft around from the land, get someone to hold on to the back of the float, and then get your assistant to push you off, forwards, once the engine is started..... much easier, but less fun!)

Then recently I hand-swung a very unusual home-built aircraft, and I can't remember what it was called. Aparently, it's the only one in the country. The pilot was a Canadian Air Force pilot on an exchange program, based in Scotland, who had borrowed this aircraft from a friend. Unfortunately he had a few electrical problems en-route and diverted into Blackpool to try to sort them out. With his radio inop, he got a light signal and proceeded to land, found his way to the apron, and shut down. Obviously without a radio, and at a field he wasn't familiar with, he didn't know where he was going, and found himself parked outside my hangar with a flat battery. I offered to try to hand-swing the prop, and after the first unsuccessful attempt I figured out that something wasn't quite right.

Then it hit me - it was a 6-cylinder engine! Anyone ever swung one of these before? In a 4-cylinder 4-stroke engine, each compression you feel represents one full ccompression of one cylinder, which is hopefully followed by ignition. In a 6-cylinder engine, one cylinder will begin its compression stroke before the previous one finishes. So, I reasoned, I'd have to swing it through two compressions before it'll fire! It worked, we got it going soon after that, but it was hard work! Anyone else ever swung a 6-cylinder engine? Any hints, on the off-chance I ever have to do it again?

FFF
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