Hunter "Wet Start"

The former de-Havilland Aviation Vampire T.55 G-DHAV starting up, on 6th May 2001…

Less than a month later it was destroyed at Biggin Hill, tragically killing Sir Ken Hayr and Jim Kerr.

This was me at Legends this year.
Brian, aka “Pen Pusher” has a really good one of the same engine at Legends in 2006 on his web site.

Also found this one on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2zE86YAGf8

Pete

2005 actually:D

Brian

A small moving demonstration-ette on one those fangled turboprop jobbies

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lxoMCfonTqY

also a Meteor engine for the hell of it (turn it up)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJuS0jR6_E4

Wet starts.

If we had a wet start at Binbrook on a Canberra and the engine had’nt caught but we still had a fire in the tail pipe we would quickly put a new cartridge in and start the engine again with no fuel pumps running and ignition off. It usually worked and by that time the heavy gang were there with the big extinguishers.

Ken

lydd airshow last year, poor old girl is still sat outside at cov looking sorry for herself

This was me at Legends this year.
Brian, aka “Pen Pusher” has a really good one of the same engine at Legends in 2006 on his web site.

Also found this one on YouTube:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2zE86YAGf8

Pete

Here’s a cartridge start on WK163 taken in 2003 at Kemble.

They were somewhat shocked to find the Venom taxing to the runway, lol
as they were convinced it had burst into flames when starting up 🙂

A similar thing happened when a visiting SeaHawk squadron started up together at a US airfield during the 1950s, their fire department turned out.:D

Now to see a line up of 10-12 of those start up together, by pre arranged signal, was a spectacle worth watching.

Smaller cartiridges though, in a six-shot chamber, but IIRC fired in pairs.

Reminds me of a story I was told a few years back, a DH Venom was being started up using the catargie start (ie lots of black smoke). Some American guys were close to said aircraft and as soon as the black smoke came out ran off and came back with fire fighting gear.

They were somewhat shocked to find the Venom taxing to the runway, lol
as they were convinced it had burst into flames when starting up 🙂

Does this qualify? At Legends this year.

Dean

You can do it with a Merlin or a Griffon as well, I have, oops. Over primmed and a full set of flames from all twelve exhausts..

mick

I’ve been on the recieving end of that with P51’s..which standing on the wing ********* about with something 😡 (yes, plural, I guess I didn’t learn the first time..) At least the big fan up front kinda cools you down & extinguishes the conflgration once the engine catches…:)

Sometimes I hate pilots…… lol

Phixer,
I had a good walkround the Cranberry while there later on this year and bagged some great detail shots, this is one I took of the starter breech on the port engine, should have got a pic of them loading a cartridge really but forgot:( .John.

Thank you for that, just as I remember them. Rather easier to get at there than in the Hunter.

When I came off Phantoms I went to a trials unit at Lee-on-Solent where they had Hunters coming in from FRADU for Harley Light and other fits (see Avatar – that was one of them).

As soon as the locals discovered I had previous Hunter experience I found myself assigned to these.

They were having trouble removing cartridges from the one on site when I joined. I went and had a go and managed to shift one but the others were carboned in. Recalling the tool once used on Heron Flight I took the removed cap into the workshops and from the metal store cut a length of suitable steel pipe off the end of a longer section. Then with the aid of heat and anvil in the blacksmiths/welding bay flattened one end, fitted a steel rivet, bent that end twice to wrap around star wheel of cap and then drilled and fitted a suitable bolt and two nuts to act as purchase at what was now the handle end.

This tool was then put under proper tool control and used for the next 9 years or so.

At Lee I caused a mild flap when I went out to ground run a Hunter GA after servicing. Having been borrowed by Heron Flight to ground run one of their Hunters whilst ashore at Yeovilton with 892 Phantoms I was still in date for the Hunter. What I had not appreciated was that at Lee the rules were different and only pilots could ground run Hunters.

Later on one occasion I found myself in a T8 with a pilot engaged in a compass swing. Because the compass adjuster was behind the port seat I found myself driving the Hunter around to change the headings as the pilot knelt on his seat adjusting the compass. Quite interesting that differential braking and using just the right amount of power increase to caster the nose-wheel to achieve a turn.

We were using a stretch of old runway from beneath which they have recently removed some old WW2 pipe bombs that had been forgotten.:D

Canberra starter breech.

Phixer,

I had a good walkround the Cranberry while there later on this year and bagged some great detail shots, this is one I took of the starter breech on the port engine, should have got a pic of them loading a cartridge really but forgot:( .

Regards,

John.

This was taken at the last general open day at Brunty……
John.

Nice. I do like to see the effect of those big Avon starter cartridges.

Were they similar to the Hunter ones? The Canberra T22s I worked with had a similar cartridge to the Hunters GA11, RN PR10 and T8c.

Some find it hard to believe how large they were, some shotgun that’s for sure! 😀

Anybody got one to measure or post a pic with a rule alongside for scale. ISTR they were about 3 1/2 inches in diameter and a good six inches long or thereabouts. But it has been some time since I last fitted them.

That Hunter triple breach is probably why I now have so much trouble with my right shoulder, being a short-a*** it was an awkward reach.

Canberra wet start.

This was taken at the last general open day at Brunty……

Regards,

John.

Sea Kings are particularly prone to wet starts too. Best seen on a night scramble – a helecopter with afterburners… awesome.:cool:

I recall a classic wet start but of a very different type.

In the late 1960s Hunters with the 12x series engines were suffering from a turbine failure problem, more on that below.

One T8 returned from a sortie and the pilot snagged it for engine vibration. The CPO I was working with on the Hunter section of Heron Flight at the time decided to give it a run and check how the vibration felt through the seat, doing this one could assess if the vibration was due to a problem with the aux-gearbox drive or something else.

Chiefy went out ahead of me whilst I collected a couple of CO2 extinguishers. Whilst I was walking towards the aircraft I was astonished, and somewhat concerned, to see and hear the familiar cartridge start. The a/c had just been refuelled and the customary half oil drum on a castored trolley used to catch any overflow and drips was STILL UNDER the a/c. The fuel vent being adjacent to the starter vent.

As the engine wound up a cloud of vaporized AVCAT was sucked forward and straight into the intakes. At which point I saw Chiefie’s head jerk up as he noticed the JPT (term still used in those days) shoot up and then he caught my frantic signals to cut as I rushed in with a CO2. Fortunately there was enough fuel in the bin to absorb all heat by vaporisation so there was no ignition.

The turbine problem was the result of the nozzle guide vane retaining ring cracking and allowing the guide vanes to slip onto the rotating assembly. RR brought out a mod to fix this.

One aircraft came back with vibration and although the engine was pos-mod I decided, once it had cooled, to go up the jet pipe and use the custom set of hockey stick go/no-go gauges to check the clearance between the assemblies. This require much rotation of the engine with frequent use of gauges and making careful notes in this dark and smelly hole. I discovered, in fact I heard the rubbing, that this engine’s turbine was in trouble. I reported this to the powers and they suggested I do it again as Rolls informed us when told that this was impossible on a post-mod engine. The upshot was that Rolls rep’s came down whilst we in the meantime removed the tail of the aircraft and the outlet casing from the turbine so that we were directly on it. We then saw the cracks in the nozzle guide vane retaining rings which allowed the movement. The engine was rejected of course and Rolls had another headache.

On another occasion whilst doing a hockey stick check I had placed a rating at the foot of the cockpit ladders to prevent anybody getting in the cockpit whilst I was up the pipe. Unfortunately this rating, without a word to myself, decided to wander off to the heads (toilets to you ‘lubbers), allowing a greenie (electrician) to get into the cockpit and carry out an igniter check. Boy, that is when I fully understood why they were called ‘bangers’. 😀

On 2 Squadron, RAAF, back in the 1950s, our Canberras had wet starts if the pilot switched on the pumps and faffed around for a long time before pressing the **** (starter buttons to you non-ones).

Bri 🙂

Are we lucky…

Enough for anyone who has got pics or videos of “wet starts” we can “ooohhhh,aaaaaahhhh” over?:D

Vampires and Venoms well known for doing that, and along with the bang and black acrid smoke from the starter cartridge, all very exciting!
Penzance S-61s always seen to do it on the first start of a dewy morning, much to the consternation of the passengers!