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The self stater. Yes you start it yourself.


robothut

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Kind of like starting my 1938 Super Seahorse. Or a Le-Rhone ...Remember the old ww1 movies when they would land..It sounded like the engine was cutting out..Well it was . They had very little control of throttle ,,so when they had to slow down on approach they would turn the engine ignition on and off to control engine thrust.. The Rhone was one of the few radials,,that the cylinders rotate.. 

 

 

 

 

 

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A few yrs back a Friend down the road called.. Jeff ask if I would help him install an Engine in one of his pulling tractors..Well when I got there and he pulled the lid of,,it was Holy Sh#t Jeff.  I haven't worked on one of these since I crewed the B-17 Fuddy Duddy .  Now Jeff may look a little rough around the edges,,,but a Genius..Just a little lacking on personal hygiene .. 

We welded up engine mounts and got that Continental R-985 in there. Came out of a Sherman tank..Gobs of low end torque..and sounded just swell.. Two yrs later I saw Jeff at an auction..He said,,stop by the Barn on the way home..I did and sitting in a corner were two Jet engines combined to a central gearbox...WTH are these Jeff ? I don't know,,lets just start them.. Jeff we don't just start them..We don't have instruments,,No air Start,,Fuel supply and most important a Fire Extinguisher !!! Well I wrote down the Data plates and 15 minutes later ,,there they were. RARE !! Jeff had managed to snag the engines from The Convair XFY-1 Pogo... 

 

 

 

 

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The most inclusive assembly video I have ever seen. For an Engine that VERY few people will ever touch...I never worked on one..Love the unshielded spark plug wires..Now I know why it's so hard to start ..The Mag has no Impulse Coupling.. That I can see. That is a lot of gyroscopic mass rotating ...I would think left hand rolls are tough.. I'll bet those flight controls are not neutral trimmed. Add the "P" factor from the prop,,it has to be a handful to fly.. Beautiful engine though.  I have to watch the video again..There must be an intake port at the bottom of the cylinder to charge it from the crank.. and then the exhaust valve.

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