Question on Airstart

[Glassair]

Hi there, while in the air with the Mrk 1a I quited the engine. Brought back throttle, pitch to coars, pulled the low rpm cut-out, closed the fuel tank levers and set the magneto's to off.

Put her in a gentle glide (-20 on variometer) and steady 120 knots. Could not bring the prop to a halt, without bringing her to a stall. I tried to restart the engine, by following the procedure for starting on the ground. However I could not get her started because the start button was stuck and would not move. It was in the off/out position. The button could be moved if all switches and buttons were in the off position.

Is this normal behaviour? What's the correct procedure for engine shut down and restart in the air? Or are we supposed to just bale?


One other small issue, there are seemingly rsndom situations where the outside sound is missing.

Thanks,
Rob

[Scott - A2A]

Let us do some testing and report back to you.

Scott.

[lonewulf47]

I doubt that you will be able to stop the prop from windmilling inflight. There is no feathering prop! So the slipstream will keep it turning. Thus just make sure fuel and ignition is on and it will start again. There is no need to push the starter button as long as the engine is turning. I can imagine that this will screw up the whole procedure with our "sticking" start button which was introduced to keep hands free for priming.

Oskar

[Glassair]

Thus just make sure fuel and ignition is on and it will start again

Indeed that did not work either, it was 'sputtering' (is that english?). So maybe it has to do with the sticky starter button?

[lonewulf47]

Rob,

Funny, I did several airstarts now and had absolutely no issue whatsoever. Even when I pushed the start button - as soon as the engine fires up the button pops out as it should. I tried on both the Mk. I and the Mk. II with the same result.

The question that arises however - and you don't mention this in your post - WHY did the engine quit? If it quit from a technical reason apart from fuel starvation you cannot expect to have it restarted !! If it's broken it will remain broken !! Keep in mind: it's AccuSim !! So a restart from fuel starvation is without ANY problems. ANY other restart is - depending on the causes of quitting - simply not possible. You should shed some light on the reason why it quit.

Oskar

[Glassair]

Like I said:

I quitted the engine. Brought back throttle, pitch to coarse, pulled the low rpm cut-out, closed the fuel tank levers and set the magneto's to off.

So no mechanical reasons only my own fiddling, perhaps I 'screwed' something up. I'll do some more testing. Thanks for testing along!

[Tigerclaw]

I wouldn't have thought it was a good idea to press the starter with the engine turning over anyway. And as the wind would be turning the prop with the forces against it, that in turn would be rotating the engines pistons and crank. Pressing the starter would be like turning the key in a car when the engine is running, a lovely grating sound with bits of metal breaking off in the starter motor.

I haven't tried it, but I assume you'd need the engine mag switched on though, with mag 1 & 2 on, and fuel turned on, and the rotating prop would start the engine.

[lonewulf47]

I haven't tried it, but I assume you'd need the engine mag switched on though, with mag 1 & 2 on, and fuel turned on, and the rotating prop would start the engine.

That's exactly what I said im my input above There is absolutely nothing missing in the airstart. However apart from a somewhat bad noise engaging the starter on a running engine is not really damaging as the gear pinion of the starter motor is thrown back by it's spiral engagement/disengagement coupling. Not sure how the Coffman would behave but my guess is that there is also some free-running protection. On the electric side however there is absolutely no protection against engaging starters when airborne.

Oskar

[Tigerclaw]

That's exactly what I said im my input above

Oskar

Sorry, I didn't read it, my bad. At least I was correct in my thinking then, and that's a good sign. I know that car starter protection is installed in the starter, and the worm is sprung so that when it engages, it's thrown back. I was just trying to keep it simple and make the point I was getting at

My writing skills are not the best, I didn't even take exams, let alone pass anything I'm more the practical type of guy, or if you prefer, monkey see, monkey do I also try things to see if they work as I want, I get about 50/50 success rate Did you know that humans can't fly just by flapping their arms? Yep it's true, and I have a flat head to prove it