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I sort of thought that Stovebolt engines sometimes (and only 'sometimes) might act like this!




Subject: Remembering Good Old Recips!

We gotta get rid of turbines, they are ruining aviation. We need to go back to big round engines. Anybody can start a turbine, you just need to move a switch from "OFF" to "START," and then remember to move it back to "ON" after a while. My PC is harder to start. Cranking a round engine requires skill, finesse and style. On some planes, the pilots are not even allowed to do it.

Turbines start by whining for a while, then give a small lady-like poot and start whining louder.

Round engines give a satisfying rattle-rattle, click-click BANG, more rattles, another BANG, a big macho fart or two, more clicks, a lot of smoke and finally a serious low pitched roar. We like that. It's a guy thing. When you start a round engine, your mind is engaged and you can concentrate on the flight ahead.

Starting a turbine is like flicking on a ceiling fan: Useful, but hardly exciting. Turbines don't break often enough, leading to aircrew boredom, complacency and inattention. A round engine at speed looks and sounds like it's going to blow at any minute. This helps concentrate the mind. Turbines don't have enough control levers to keep a pilot's attention There's nothing to fiddle with during the flight.

Turbines smell like a Boy Scout camp full of Coleman lanterns. Round engines smell like God intended flying machines to smell.

I think I hear the nurse coming down the hall. I gotta go.

I agree. Nothing like the round engines. From my back porch I can see downwind for 34 and can always pick out the round engines. I'm lucky, my home field has 4 T-6s, a T28, 2 Stearmen, a B-25, a CJ6 and a really nice 195 that comes over often from a neighboring field. I just heard yesterday that the guy who owns the P-51 on the field has decided to park it. If someone could find that $.15/gal fuel that they used to have, I'd have a round engine too... or maybe two of them or....

It was a nice day today and some Harvard (AT-6)pilot took the opportunity to beat up the neighbourhood. It sounded nice.

Last year we had a forest fire near us and two of these big guys flew over the house every 10 minutes or so. Really loud round engines! I am putting together a video - will let you know when I post it on the web.

[img]http://members.shaw.ca/ghillsden/misc/Mars-Lake.jpg[/img]

Flying Tankers

Gord! Thanks for that great link.

Sometime in the early 60's I had a chance to tour inside one of those when it was dry docked at Pat Bay for maintenance. Just a fantastic airplane! It must be a great sight in the air.

Thanks again.

Geo.

jarge, are youforetting the old turbojets? The ones that weren't digital engine control. The ones that were real easy to overfuel and end up with a fire in the pipe. There wasn't anything boring about starting them old girls, white knuckle operation all the way to fire and wind. I agree the radials are more fun to start and some times real interesting on start up. But you could usually see what was happening to them. The first sign some thing was amiss with the oldturbines was a little EGT guage. You could never be sure it was going to start cooling down before the never exceed limit was passed. Mike

OK. I have my video of the Mars. It's about 5.5M so you will have to be patient waiting for it to load if you have a slow connection. It's in Windows media format. I have sent it off to the Aviation video website so they can post it there.

Mars Video

Aviation Videos

Gord...

Very cool clip. Thanks for the posts..interesting reading.