Lovely bit of Fokker DVII flying

Excellent Monz Thanks for that

Garry

Beautiful but an electric start!
The bit I liked most was the sound of the tick over between 1:41 to 1:55. I guess no more than 500 rpm

Quorneng wrote: Beautiful but an electric start!
The bit I liked most was the sound of the tick over between 1:41 to 1:55. I guess no more than 500 rpm

Apparently not. This from one of the comments:

They didn't have starter motors, but hand cranked starter magnetos. The engine is temporarily decompressed using a handle at the rear of the camshaft, and turned through a few priming revs. It's then recompressed, and you can hear the pilot cranking the starter mag, whereupon she starts first time.

I thought it was a cartridge start - that's what he was installing under that flap.

Eric wrote: I thought it was a cartridge start - that's what he was installing under that flap.

Not sure, that flap gives access to the float chamber and decompression lever (I think). He could have been doing something to the carb to help priming of the cylinders.

Found this start procedure for that engine:

Turn ignition switch to Off
Retard Ignition
Throttle closed
Decompression lever to De-compress (lever pointing down)
Hand rotate the propeller 6 revolutions. This will draw a fresh fuel mixture charge into each cylinder
Close de-compression lever
Magneto switch to M1 (start)
Rapidly turn the Hand Start Magneto - Engine will fire
Idle at 200-250 rpm for 5 to 10 minutes
Slowly increase revolutions to 600 rpm
Magneto switch to M2 and check for rpm drop (magneto check)
Magneto switch to 2 and move ignition advance lever to mid position
When running cleanly, fully advance ignition and check full throttle against rpm reading
When engine checks are complete, idle at 300 – 350 rpm until the pilot is in the airplane

I have taken the following from the Aerodrome web site:

"Hi I'm the fellow starting the D VII in the video. The plane is not original but the engine is. Mercedes D IIIau 200hp 15 liter which came from original D VII 8493/18. Which was shipped to Camp Borden Canada in 1919.

There is no battery only the "Anlass" magnet. It's wired to the left magnet on the engine. The rotor has an extra connection point and a extra metal pin next to the carbon brush. Starting the engine is simple when the fueltank is under pressure you give the prop six blades to get the mixture in every cilinder. Then you step in and turn the "Anlass" magnet rapidly this will cause a sparkshower. There will allways be one of the cilinders in firing position."

I think he is referring to 'magneto' not 'magnet'.

here he is in one of his other toys



chris

I was reading about the Royal Navy Sea Harrier - more about why later
Its final upgrade to 'FA 2' standard in 1995 included for the first time ever a GPS navigation system - a conventional hand held Garmin 100 mounted in the cockpit! :woohoo: