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STARTER
ENVY "Look at 'em," I
thought to myself as a bunch
of swells just walked by. "I'm surprised they didn't call for the
courtesy cart to take them the 75 feet out to their plane." Immaculately dressed, in
uniforms, epaulets, starched shirts, they walk up the airstair door,
pull it up and closed behind them, and we watch as the pilots slide
gracefully into the sheepskin covered padded leather seats in the
cockpit. "Ready?" the pilot
asks by raising his eyebrows toward the copilot. A nod of assent from the copilot
and the pilot holds an index finger up to the windshield. At the same
time a guy on the ramp raises a hand, points to the number one engine
and twirls his index finger around in a circle. The pilot pushes the START
button, and that constitutes his workload for this task. "Click." You can hear it from outside,
and it's followed by the whine of an electric motor. The engine revolutions reach 15 or 20%
followed by a kind of "fwoomp"
and the whine gets louder as it crescendoes into the sound of a jet engine at idle. The pilot lets go of the START button and it toggles itself over to RUN. That's about it. On some aircraft you do have
to toggle the START button over to RUN yourself. And of course you have to repeat the
whole process for the other engine.
Meanwhile, a few men gather
around the bomber. No, they're not street corner
pick-up labor, it's the crew. Knowledgeable as only old men can be,
professional, retired, stooped, gnarled and gray, staying active in a
life they love, some dressed in coveralls, oil-stained shirts, grease
and hydraulic fluid spots shining just so, like jewels, when the
sunlight catches 'em right. One man, wearing gloves, leans
in and pulls a massive propeller blade toward him by the trailing edge.
It's sharper than you might think. The other two men lean forward and
push against the front of the blade as it travels through a compression
stroke of the huge 18 cylinder engine. * "One," someone grunts
aloud, and they walk back to pull another blade through,
"two," then "three" and on until the men, panting
now, finally call out 'twelve" and stagger away to rest for a
moment before walking around to the other engine and do it all again. When radial engines are idle for
a while, the lubricating oil in the cylinders and pushrod tubes
works its way into the bottom cylinders, and if left to accumulate can
lead to a condition called "hydraulic lock" in which an
incompressible liquid is worked on by an irresistible force - the mass
and inertia of thousands of pounds of rotating crankshaft and pistons
and propeller assembly driven around by the starter motor. Something's
going to give, and it isn't going to be the liquid. Metal parts, engine
seals, rubber gaskets; something's going to give to relieve the pressure, and the
consequences are likely to prove disastrous in a very short time. Pulling the propellers through several compression strokes by hand first gives the crew a chance to feel for a 'lock' condition, and gives the engine a chance to operate valves and push any accumulated oil out the exhaust valve into the stacks. If 'locked' the lower spark plugs are removed, the propellers pulled through and the accumulated oil pours out through the spark plug holes, and the condition is cleared with no harm. Now one of the men reaches
through open cowl flaps and unhooks a
couple of clips and pulls an aluminum catch funnel from around the
lowest exhaust stacks. The collector drains
down a hose into a large plastic bucket, which is now rolled back out of
the way and secured to a fence. The crunch underfoot is the oil
absorbent granules, like kitty litter, that soak up the mist of oil from
the exhaust, oil drips and drops of hydraulic fluid and globs of grease
from moving mechanical parts under pressure. Meanwhile, here comes the pilot
and copilot. George is always the pilot, and copilots can be Jerry or
Fred, and like many aircraft owners, their clothes reflect a
personal interest in the aircraft, and the common bond with the crew - the oil spots, hydraulic fluid and grease stains, battery acid
holes, frayed and
ripped clothing - there must be a thousand protruding rivet and screw
heads on that plane, particularly when going into the cockpit. Did I mention the other guys
sliding into their sheepskin covered padded leather seats in the jet? Follow me forward. Here's the
wing spar. The small rectangular opening about knee high is the entry
hatch to the cockpit. Over on your hands and knees onto the comfort of a
piece of scrap blue foam wall insulation on the floor, inch forward until you can grab the
seat back in front of you and pull yourself up. Now, try to raise one
leg high enough to clear the center control console without kicking
anything off it, the main instrument panel or auxiliary panels along the
sides, and you're ready to step down past the yoke and rudder pedals and pull the other leg over.
The pilot's got it easy, because he's moving in a straight line from the
entrance to the seat - the copilot's got to double around backwards to his
seat. Settled in, with the clamshell
canopy open, the pilot and copilot attend to the pre-start checklist,
and when everything's ready call for the starter. The starter is one of the crew,
and he stands out front during the engine start to make sure nothing
falls off, there are no fluid streams - gas, oil, hydraulic fluid - spurting out from anywhere, and if
it should backfire and flames leap out, has a fire extinguisher close at
hand. Now, someone in the cockpit will
call out, "Number One", if on the left, or "Number Two" if on the right and the starter raises his arm and twirls his
index finger around. This can mean either "start it" or "the
propeller's turning around" depending upon the phase of the
procedure. George has chosen Number One and
engaged the starter motor which starts the massive propeller spinning
around, and he counts aloud as the blades go by, "One, two, three .
.," until "nine", and he flips another switch which only
then turns on the ignition spark, and another blade or two goes by. Sometimes the engine springs to
life and it's an easy start. Sometimes, though, a few rotations into the
start, and suddenly there's an explosion and a pretty good sized cloud
of smoke volcanoes from the stacks. A few more blades go by and then it's
as if somebody set off a whole box of M-80's all at once as the engine
roars to life while palls of smoke and staccato backfires tell the world
the engine's running but it sure isn't happy. George and Jerry, George on the throttle and Jerry on the mixture, push and pull and feel for the magic combination of the two that will satisfy the engine and it settles down into the loping rumble that only a contented round engine can make. "It's good," George decides, looks at Jerry for an instant, sees agreement, and calls, "Number Two," and the man on the ramp raises his left arm and waves his index finger around and everyone goes through the process again. Together, they reach up and
close both sides of the clamshell canopy and secure the latches, and
they're ready to call for taxi clearance. That's all there is to it. It's a manly thing, and the sense of accomplishment is great, and very satisfying. The guys in the jet could only look out from their air-conditioned comfort and wonder if maybe they weren't missing out on something primal, something essential. The whine and whoosh of some distant thing in the back just can't fill the hearts of the men in the cockpit like the pounding pulse and power throb of the mighty Pratt &Whitney R-2800s at their elbows, as Hamilton Standards out front grab and slash the earth's air, churn it into thrust and strain to pull the bomber forward.
* There are two
Pratt & Whitney R-2800 engines on the Douglas A26 INVADER.
Each engine has 18 cylinders with
a displacement of 2,800 cubic inches, and develops 2,000
horsepower. It's like having a Republic P-47 Thunderbolt or Vought F4U
Corsair on each wing. It's a very fast
airplane, 424 mph maximum with bomb bay doors open, though there are
some pilot reports of over 500 mph cleaned up in a dive. Empty of bombs it could
outturn and fly faster than the E-model Messerschmitt ME-109, though not
the F and G models, and is credits with many kills against German
aircraft, even a likely kill of a ME-262, the German jet fighter. The better known B-25
Mitchell and Martin B-26 Marauder were pre-war designs built for the
up-coming war. The A-26 was designed during the war as a replacement for
the very capable Douglas A-20 Havoc. The A-26 could carry a heavier load further and faster than any of them. It had eighteen forward-firing .50 cal machine guns, but could carry combinations of 75mm or 37mm cannon with the machine guns.
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