LETTERS

Starter’s orders…

Prop swinging is a skill that demands great care and good technique, says Steve Slater…

It’s the time of year when (we hope) the weather will allow airfields to dry out and aircraft to re-emerge, blinking, into the sunshine. Some of those aircraft may be a bit recalcitrant to instantly spring into life. A pilot’s starting techniques may also be a bit rusty and this is particularly important if the aircraft has to be handswung, or started by the ‘Armstrong method’.

There is, sadly, a steady stream of one or two incidents each year which continue to demonstrate that while prop-swinging can be carried out safely by following the right procedures, it is like many things in flying, inherently unforgiving of inattention or a lapse of the correct practices.

There has been no shortage of advice and information on prop-swinging down the years and I’m indebted in this article to among others LAA Safety

Working Group colleagues Mark Wakem and John

Marriott, Head of Coaching David Cockburn and

Vintage Aircraft Club stalwart John Broad for their input and comments, which have allowed me to cover a wide range of different types, engines and techniques.

We’re not even talking of the exotica of vintage rotaries and radials here. There is a world of difference for example, in swinging the propeller of a Gipsy Major on the front of a Tiger Moth or Auster, a Continental or Lycoming on say, a Cub or Pietenpol, or swinging a propeller attached to a VW-based aero-engine. I regard the latter as similar to baiting a Jack Russell terrier. It will go from silent indifference to attempting to bite you in a fraction of a second…

However, the most important thing is that anyone swinging a propeller, whether working in conjunction with a pilot in the cockpit or with the aeroplane suitably chocked, and in many cases with the tail tied down too, swinging solo you MUST have a standard set of procedures and stick to them – without interruption or distraction.

Main Starting the 230hp Bentley Rotary (BR-2) engined TVAL replica Sopwith Snipe ZK-SNI looks like it could be a bit of a challenge. Someone in the cockpit, a person on each wingtip and a fire extinguisher show that the Shuttleworth crew appreciate the potential risks. Photo: Alan Wilson

Position

Look at where the aircraft is parked before even considering trying to start the engine.

It should be located so that when it does start the propeller wash does not blow into an open hangar or