In my brief flirtation with an Aviation career, there were a couple of procedures that we adopted when trying to coax the pair of Gnomes into life on the Wessex:
1. If the starter Solenoid stuck it was the crewman’s job to leap out and climb up the side of the cockpit, and strike the nose 4″ in front of the Captain’s windscreen with the side of the Fire-Axe.
2. If the Gnome failed to ignite, the Crackers would get soiled and should be removed for cleaning before a re-start is attempted, it takes 2 hours to remove the lower one on the Gnome in the Wessex. To clean the crackers we would shut down the LP & HP Cocks, run through the start without switching them back on and as the captain hit the start button he would signal for the ground crew to fire a water extinguisher into the intake. Lots of steam from the exhaust later, a normal start normally followed!
I was wondering what other un-documented Procedures there were on other classic types?
By: wessex boy - 18th September 2005 at 16:42
Aaaah yes the droop stops, many a time spent in front of a Wessex with thumbs & Arms being waved at the Captain while they did/didn’t go in…..
By: Slipstream - 18th September 2005 at 16:27
Wessex and Whirlwinds had droop stops to prevent the blades hitting the tail when shutting down. Sometimes these would stick and if they couldn’t be freed off by spinning up the rotor one of the ground crew had to climb up and coax them back in with a broom handle.
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September 18, 2005 at 2:16 pm