Starting an engine with a shotgun shell?

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wfCG6p-225s&feature=related

crackmeup2.gif
 
Originally Posted By: Bluestream
Originally Posted By: xlt4me
Ever seen flight of the Phoenix? Some old radial engines use a cartridge similar to a shotgun shell to start.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IACjOvyx5hs&feature=related



What a great movie, both the original and the re-make

I believe the author, Elleston Trevor, was a pilot in real life as well -- flew for Britain during WWII.

ETA: I guess not. According to his son, Trevor had an eye disease that caused him to fail the medical for the RAF. But he had a lifelong interest in both real planes and model ones.

"She is not a toy, Mister Townes. She is an aeroplane."
 
Originally Posted By: Chris142
Where does the lead shot go?


It gets taken out before the shell gets used. Shells made 25+ years ago were easier to open up.
 
My Old Man was a naval aviator in the Big One (Dubya Dubya Eye Eye). He used to tell me he used a cartridge to start the engine of his Wildcat fighter. It had a radial engine, as noted above.
 
"I'm going to use kerosene to clean out the cranckcase..."

"I FORBID YOU!!!!"

"I FORBID YOU!!!!"

BANG

"oops."
 
'Some old radial engines use a cartridge similar to a shotgun shell to start.'

Surprisingly some jets used the same system - the B57 /British Canberra bomber used it .
 
Hi,
Fishing boats in the North Sea (ex Scandinavia) used a cartidge start device. Many of the engines were single cylinder and had a max of around 100rpm. The bore was around 1m and the stroke about 1.5, 2m?

The Danes were/are? masters of building these very reliable engines
 
Originally Posted By: Chris142
Originally Posted By: edhackett
They weren't actually shotgun shells. They were a powder only cartridge that looked like a shotgun shell, specifically designed for engine starting.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffman_engine_starter

Ed
Thanks for clearing that up for me. I couldn't imaging wanting shot inside the cylinders
I bet some people have used ordinary shells, with hilarious consequences.
 
There's no way to use a standard shot shell. They appear to be based on a 4 gauge shell and had an electrically fired primer. They didn't fire directly into the cylinder, they turned a starter motor.

Here's a great explanation of the system.

http://www.sjvls.org/bens/bf010cs.htm

Ed

It looks like the tractor system is something different than a Coffman system.
 
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