Cowl - Carburator intake curiosity

[Mark Goldberg]

Those of you that talk of hand propping - have you ever hand propped a 540 powered plane? A long time ago an airplane mechanic friend told me that he would not hand prop anything bigger than an O360. I respected his opinion and have only propped 4 cylinder engines. Mark

[schu]

I haven't since my 540 is on the bench still. But this is certainly something I will look into, but slowly and safely. I want to know if it's an option that works before I'm trying to do it in the sticks with a dead battery.

Depending on how well my solar charger works, I might never need to do it. It will act like a solar powered battery maintainer when the airplane is parked, and if I get caught in the sticks with a dead battery, I might need to hang out for a day or two in order to get enough charge to start, which isn't the end of the world.

Whatever works is fine with me, but I will have plan B and have explored using it before I have an actual emergency.

[whee]

Here is a guy and propping a Pponk (O520) with a three blade MT.

I hope to never have to hand prop my Continental IO360 but I do know the FI Continentals can be propped.

[jaredyates]

With the earthx jump starting pack being as small, light, and handy as it is, I carry it everywhere in the airplane.

[Battson]

Here is a guy and propping a Pponk (O520) with a three blade MT.

I hope to never have to hand prop my Continental IO360 but I do know the FI Continentals can be propped.

With a three blade MT - that is not an easy plane to hand-prop....
A long two blade would be a lot easier.

We spent 15 minutes swinging on a Super Cub prop the other weekend, with a carb. LOTS of fiddling with the mixture to get the prime right. The engine must have done 200 revolutions before the thing started.... "Easy"
I am convinced I could hand swing my plane a lot faster than that! With the cylinders primed of course... But I am not rushing out to try it. Never had a totally flat battery yet, and I hope not to.

[schu]

With the earthx jump starting pack being as small, light, and handy as it is, I carry it everywhere in the airplane.

I would absolutely have one of those with an EFI system.

[svyolo]

I did some googling yesterday and I saw several hits that said hand propping a IO-540 with an MT prop is not fun. One of them used 4 letter words a lot. I hope I never have to do it, but I do want to make sure I can.

For me one of the biggest reasons I want an EFI is dead nuts reliable starting, every time. I am going to use it as a bush plane so it is out and back, shutting the airplane off in the middle of nowhere. Starting reliably is almost as important as running reliably. I guess that is where my "comfort" with EFI comes from. But if I can be convinced that the mechanical FI's can be made to start as reliably, I could definitely be swayed.

I flew a trip several years ago with a guy that lived in Alaska. He was on his 4th bush plane. I can't remember how his first 2 "ended", but his 3rd was swallowed by the tide. He landed on a beach, well below the high tide line. An hour later it wouldn't start. Even hand propping.

[Bdflies]

I bought one of these, a while back;

https://noco-thenococompany.netdna-ssl.com/media/nocodownloads/format/g/e/genius-boost-car-battery-jump-starter-sell-sheet-gb150.pdf

The 150 is a pretty big unit. They make several smaller ones, but all of my equipment is diesel powered - very high compression- so I got the 150. It starts my Kubota 70hp tractor, with an absolutely DEAD battery. (I refuse to buy a tractor battery before Spring). It weighs 7#, which certainly isn't a bag of feathers, but I guarantee it's a heck of an insurance policy, for a trip to the outback!

Bill