A long time ago, a pilot friend of mine, whom I would trust with my life, asked me to hand prop his flat battery Cessna 150. I was very comfortable hand propping, and happy to help him. It was an aircraft I also regularly flew, so I knew it to be in good mechanical condition, including the live mag check, which I had recently done…
As it was the first flight of the day, pulling it through a few times was appropriate. I called to him "Mags off" and he called back “Mags off”. I swung the prop once, it started, and ran quite nicely. I looked through the turning propeller at my friend in the pilot’s seat, and gave him that look, which he knew was my question to him, “are the mags really off?”. He immediately held up the keys, which I saw through the still turning prop!
This particular 150 was equipped with one of the mag switches which was later AD’d for internal failure which lead to two live mags. What a dangerous co-incidence that the time of the switch’s first failure, was the first time I would hand prop the plane!
If I have to touch a prop, I touch it assuming that the next thing it will be, is running!
Pilot DAR