I am in an environment with little knowledge of the 47 since the NZ 47 population was written off in the deer recovery period 20 or more years back.
glad you are mobile again, but re the above, is it not true that the NZ military are still stepping out with the best rotorcraft ever built, but soon to be phased out by some European small front end model?
I don't have a whole lot of Bell 47 time, but I do have some - mostly in the G-2 with the Lycoming 435. Having said that, I never remember using, and never remember any other pilot using the "starter vibrator" switch (or whatever it was labled) on the panel.
that is possibly because you never had to resort to the crank handle which was clipped onto the rear of many of the Airfast 47's on the mainframe.!! duh. a most impressive article and one which the owner of the company took great delight in making sure was clipped on as well as ah, the requirement of having a bloody axe on one's litter. - Yes Mr Killen, yer sir, three bags full SIR.
the logic of which escaped me unil I finally saved myself that long walk one day, I mean when one has flattened one battery without result how is one going to restore noise by winding, winding, three turns, then brrrrm-nothing, then again, again, again ,again, would you like me to go on?
you may also remember the switch next to it, well on the airfast 3B1's anyway that was labelled manual or auto and referring to the hook status.
usually both were locked wired off.