Aviation Museums

[johneeb]

Click on the link below. Then click on a photo. Each photo takes you to a different museum. For aviation buffs, it doesn't get much better than this!

http://www.sbap.be/museum/museum.htm

[cessna170bdriver]

I got to visit the Air Force Flight Test Museum at Edwards this past weekend. The overflow hangar has an F-117 testbed aircraft awaiting restoration. Didn't they just publicize the existence of this airplane, or am I getting old?

[n2582d]

John,
Thanks for the link! Earlier this month on a beautiful fall day I rented a bicycle in Ottawa and pedaled to the Canada Aviation and Space Museum at the Rockcliffe airport. They have a great collection of bush planes including the very first commercial bush plane, a Curtiss HS-2L.

Curtiss HS-2L

They had the requisite Beaver and Stinson Reliant SR but no C-170 or C-180--too new I guess. The unusual ones came from Europe: 1931 Junkers W34

Junkers W34f/fi

1947 deHavilland D.H.83c Fox Moth

D.H.83c Fox Moth

U.S. made 1928 Fairchild FC-2W2

Fairchild FC-2W2

BluEldr could you explain the piping connected to the exhaust on this Norseman? Some sort of heat exchanger for cabin heat I assume?

Noorduyn Norseman VI exhaust

The museum is well worth a visit but keep the wife and kids at home; you'll want to spend 30 minutes at each display reading up on the history of each plane.

[n2582d]

Here's another website database for all the aviation museums on my bucket list. The Oakland Aviation Museum looks like a place guys give their planes to for a tax write-off. These three I can highly recommend though: The Air and Space Museum at Le Bourget has some very wonderful early 1900's aircraft. The Shuttleworth Collection northwest of London allows one to enter the restoration shop area; heaven for those of us with grease under the fingernails. The Royal Thai Air Force Museum in Bangkok has the last remaining Curtis Hawk III in existence. They also have a boatload of L-19 stuff slowly corroding away near the museum. A couple of six-packs of Singha Beer to the right general would probably get you a great restoration project.

[blueldr]

Gary,
You're right as rain on the exhaust on the Noorduyn Norseman. The early models had an intensifier tube in the exhaust pipe for cabin heat. If you will note the riser pipe at the rear entering the cabin, it includes a spill valve to dump the heat overboard when not needed. The later models of that airplane used a Stewart Warner type combustion heater, and had only a short exhaust pipe coming out of the cowling,
Also, note the "Stem Winder" connection for the inertia starter crank on the cowling. You don't see many Inertia Starters any more. The later model C-64s had an electrically energized inertia starter.

[n2582d]

BL, I noticed that spot to insert the crank in. When you say inertia starter it gives me the impression that one is spinning up a flywheel but surely that would be too heavy a method to use on a plane. Is it winding up a spring? How's it work?

Aryana -- I don't recall seeing the Caproni Ca.20 when I was there several years ago. What a great display. It looks like one could just patch the rips in the fabric, add some gas and castor oil and go flying.

It was stored for 85 years in a monastery

The flying monk, a precursor to Sally Field, the Flying Nun. The displays that stick out for me at the Seattle museum are Molt Taylor's AeroCar and some homebuilt contraption that a couple of east Berliners made to get over the wall.

[cessna170bdriver]

BL, I noticed that spot to insert the crank in. When you say inertia starter it gives me the impression that one is spinning up a flywheel but surely that would be too heavy a method to use on a plane. Is it winding up a spring? How's it work? ...

Gary,

Your impression of a spinning flywheel is correct. A BT-13 I flew had an inertial starter that you either wind up either electrically or by geared hand crank. The flywheel is geared so it turns a LOT faster than the crank, and didn't have to be as heavy as you might think. Once it was wound up it would be engaged to spin the engine for starting. I can't recall now whether the engagement was electric or mechanical. The advantage is the fairly high torque and speed imparted to the engine on initial engagement. The disadvantage is that the torque and speed are short-lived, and the starter has to be re-spun if the start attempt fails. Here's a short article: http://www.pilotfriend.com/aero_engines ... _inert.htm

[crwrpmr]

Twenty years ago I visited the Thai Airforce museum at Bangkok's old international airport. The aircraft were not restored for the most part but extremely interesting. There was a Japanese aircraft from WW2 that was the last known example in the world.
The Thai Airforce was practicing for a display and I was entertained by a formation of 4 F16's, 4 F5's and a trainer formation I can't recall what type. My guide was an American who was based in Thailand during the Vietnam war. He married a Thai girl and stayed in Thailand.
My Stearman came with an inertial starter which I used for over ten years before putting an electric starter on. For the Stearman there are two types of inertial. The model described in the earlier post where the flywheel can be turned by electric motor or by hand crank. Mine was only turned by hand and was engaged mechanically. On the Lycoming powered Stearman the starter crank receptical, engagement lever and primer are clustered on the left engine cowl.
Rob

[blueldr]

Fellas, I feel like one really picky SOB, but I feel forced to tell you that those aer NOT "INERTIAL" starters. They are "INERTIA" starters. A gear train winds up a small flywheel to a very high rpm and the INERTIA of the spinning flywheel is geared down and is used to turn the engine for starting. Early inertia starters were hand wound to energise them. You may well have seen pictures of ground crews with long cranks winding up thr INERTIA starters on early airliners such as the old Fords. Later models were elecrtically rotated. Some could be engaged while the electrical energizing was continued. Finally they came out with direct cranking starters.

"INERTIAL" is generally referred to in certain types of navigation equipment, usually found only on the larger airplanes not at all suitable for our smaller General Aviation types.

[blueldr]

Gary,
Some of the smaller airplane engines, such as the Five Cylinder Kinner Radial engine on the PT-22 that I flew in Primary training, were equipped with a ratcheting spring type engine starter. I believe that the Ranger engine on the PT-19 was also so equipped.
Aviation students and cadets were , for safety reasons, required to use the starters, but the mechanics generally propped them since it was quicker.

[n2582d]

Fellas, I feel like one really picky SOB, but I feel forced to tell you that those aer NOT "INERTIAL" starters. They are "INERTIA" starters. ...

Cut us some slack, BL -- we haven't been here since the dawn of aviation! Now are those expensive BAS shoulder harnesses I want inert, inertia or inertial reals, reels, or wheels? It's easy to chose the wrong, but close, word when one is fatigued. Coming into KIND around midnight last night another plane transposed the numbers for the next frequency. Going back to the previous controller for the correct frequency the pilot claimed he was "anorexic".

Gary,
Some of the smaller airplane engines, such as the Five Cylinder Kinner Radial engine on the PT-22 that I flew in Primary training, were equipped with a ratcheting spring type engine starter. ...

Yeah, I remember those spring starters. I used those in my primary training too. PT-19 if I recall correctly. Powered by Cox .049. Makes me dizzy just thinking about it! Seriously, it's amazing to see the variety of ways manufacturers have come up with to start aircraft. I think it was the PZL Wilga that used a compressed air starter. Then there was the pull-on-the-rope lawnmower style starter. Anyone ever seen the McDowell Safety Starter on a plane? Scroll to the bottom for a link to clipping of how to install it. Having rebuilt a 1941 BF12-65 it makes me cringe to see the guy beating and cutting up that nice nose bowl to install that starter.

[n2582d]

Guess I didn't look at it close enough. I thought it was more the pull on the rope starter.

[170C]

It sure appears ole Rube Goldburg had a hand in designing some of the aircraft starters
Anyone have any information on the type of starter used on some radials where they used a cartridge to effect cranking? One like was used in the movies Flight of the Phoenix.

[GAHorn]

Watch a demo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65qrzgbT ... ata_player

[170C]

After lengthy consideration of the multiple starter options I think I will stick to the reliable Delco-Remy