Author: Dave Gee
Edition: Model Aviation - 2009/10
Page Numbers: 94,95,96
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Safety Comes First - 2009/10

Getting a grip on hand-propping an engine

Dave Gee | [email protected]

I asked for it! The question had to do with how we start our gas engines and if hand-propping is a safe thing to do. Boy, did readers respond! I'll include only a few of the many e-mail messages I received.

Fred Huber wrote:

"My experience is that the process of actually starting the engines is not where accidents occur. It's after the propeller starts turning and virtually disappears.

"Every serious propeller cut incident I have seen, in many years of dealing with glow engines, was not from the actual attempt to start the engine."

Fred's statement matches the accident reports I see. Apparently we are most alert when we begin the starting procedure. Lapses in attention tend to happen later, while tuning or adjusting. Perhaps the engine's sound causes an overeagerness to get into the air.

The following is from Bob Wilson:

"I start all my big gassers by hand and wouldn't do it any other way. But, I do wear a padded glove when I start them. Hopefully, the glove will keep all the bone pieces inside if something goes wrong (just kidding).

"I favor starting gassers by hand simply because I don't like lugging starters, batteries and associated equipment to the field."

Bob travels light, but he is in the minority. More pilots would rather have an electric starter on hand, although not everyone uses this tool, even when it is available.

Will Greenwood commented:

"For me, starting a model engine is one of the major fun experiences of model airplanes. I love feeling that bump on the propeller that tells me the engine is ready for a sharp flip to get started. If I must resort to a starter, I am sorely disappointed.

"I have hand-started engines ranging from a .020 Pee Wee to an 85-hp Lycoming. I began to use a heavy leather glove in 1995, after the back of a diesel propeller got me."

Will makes a good point about enjoying the feel of a primed engine. This physical connection to our flying machines can be a big part of the hobby.

The problems start when a propeller tries to touch us back. Mike Cisler wrote:

"I hand-start all the time if the engine is one that will allow it. I do two things to make this as safe as possible. First and most important is to smooth all edges of the propeller. Then, when you flip a propeller, flip it like you mean it: hard and with a good follow through.

"The majority of my propellers are in the 16–20 inch range and while I have been bitten it is rare and I have been doing this for 40 years."

When guys with that much experience give advice, I listen. Starting a gas engine is inherently dangerous, but with that knowledge we can take appropriate care. Skill is a factor, and it takes time to develop the right feel for the job.

Adam Gelbart not only gets the last comment, but a photo as well. He's shown with his Bowers Fly Baby, which he starts by hand. The twin-cylinder engine is reliable and will start at a low throttle setting. Adam has an electric starter for other large engines that are not so well trained. He says that being familiar with an engine is an advantage.

The other biplane is an S.E.5a, somewhere in France or maybe Los Angeles, and I have to somehow justify printing it in the safety column. Russ Layzell transformed a Guillow's kit into this immaculate model. He is fairly new to our hobby and has had the benefit of advice and guidance from friendly club members. This is much better than struggling by yourself and learning lessons the hard way in a hobby that involves bandages.

My friend Bill Kuhl is a great guy who spends a lot of time helping youthful newcomers. His best efforts involve a website containing "newbie" information and videos. Bill recently mentioned that the visitor count to his AMA club site had reached the quarter-million mark.

Clubs and helpful fellow fliers for kids are much less common these days, and many budding young pilots would have no support without the Internet. Bill has done a service to aeromodeling by posting information that encourages new pilots. His website address is in the "Sources" list.

There are other good "basics" websites to recommend, such as the one Darcy Whyte made about his Squirrel. It is possibly the simplest tissue-covered model ever and can teach us all a few things about miniature flight. Bill and I also like the airplane section of Slater Harrison's website. Both sites' addresses are listed in "Sources."

Don Lowe also puts great effort into the support of our hobby. In the course of our work on the AMA Safety Committee, he sent an e-mail that contained a special insight. He wrote:

"The largest contributor to the AMA's good safety record is the requirement that you set up your flight area as advised. Almost all crashes occur in the flight area, therefore we have relatively few incidents of personal injury."

Think about this. We fly miniature aircraft, but we do not build or operate them to the same expensive, painstaking standards as man-carrying vehicles.

We are hobbyists who fly for fun or in competition. Model crashes are so common that we joke about them, but as long as we see and avoid full-scale aircraft and fly over a designated site, not much can go wrong beyond a bent model.

When modelers decide not to follow the time-tested guidelines for safe model flight, bad things can happen. In the public mind, such episodes reflect poorly on all modelers.

Some people complain about "too many complicated rules" and how the AMA Safety Code cramps their style. I'm not too sympathetic.

When I fly, my mind is not full of rules and restrictions. I'm just enjoying the moment, but at the same time I am certainly aware of what I am doing and how to do it properly (well, not my landings) and safely.

It comes down to logic and common sense, not pages of arbitrary rules, and nobody wants an injury instead of a nice practice flight.

Our hobby is more exciting and interesting than many others, which is why we fly instead of sketching landscapes, but there is an element of danger with which to deal. Skilled and experienced pilots go about their business, getting their models into the air in the proper way. They don't obsess about the rule book, but they know that if you do certain things differently than recommended, you, a friend, or even some stranger might be harmed. If you keep that in the back of your mind, safety is a cinch!

There's one more picture to explain. The brushfire in the photograph was clearly visible from our runway and made us all consider that a model or some human activity could spark a blaze at our field. Southern California has a notorious reputation for fires, but many other places are vulnerable in certain seasons.

Do you keep firefighting tools around? Does your club or field have shovels, extinguishers, and hoses available? How would you handle a minor flare-up that would get big if you don't put it out immediately? Bring the subject up at the next club meeting and consider carrying a general-use extinguisher in your car.

An interesting human-nature footnote is that I've twice used my extinguisher to save someone else's burning car. But neither driver offered to replace the $10 emergency tool that had just saved them thousands of dollars.

On the topic of feeling burned up, I have the latest about the despicable plot to collect royalties on scale models. A few full-scale aircraft manufacturers (Cessna, Lockheed, and maybe others) have been shaking down model-kit companies for payment, claiming that producing kits of their products somehow damages the full-scale aircraft's reputation.

Some of the airplanes in question have been out of production for 70 years, and the military designs were financed with government tax money, but the lawsuit threats were issued nonetheless. This disregards the benefits of free advertising and has the potential to shut down small kit manufacturers. I don't want modelers to have to pay royalties to U.S. plane manufacturers for producing kits. Scale models provide positive name recognition and massive goodwill that has traditionally resulted from hobby reproductions of aviation products.

I have been unable to get as much information about this stinky deal as I want, but apparently a law group went around trolling for companies that held trademark rights for trains, cars, and aircraft. It offered a speculative deal in which the full-scale companies would get a cut of any royalty deals the lawyers could arrange by threatening to sue model kit makers who use designs and logos without permission.

This changed a century of cooperation between the two industries. Several model companies had to pay fees (which jacked up their products' prices) or stop producing models of certain vehicles.

That explains why some railroads are no longer represented on model layouts, why certain car makes are unobtainable as plastic kits, and why Cessna and Lockheed aircraft are becoming unpopular and rare scale subjects.

Some of the train and car kit makers have knuckled under and paid, which has made things tougher for the rest. I don't know how much royalty was demanded on a kit, but Cessna aircraft used to be extremely popular subjects for models, and for decades the company understood that every miniature was a flying advertisement for the full-scale aircraft. Not anymore!

I've seen some imported ARFs that have intentionally wrong designations, apparently to escape this shakedown situation. An obvious replica of a Cessna is labeled "Beechcraft" and so on.

Textron is the parent company of Cessna and Bell. It needs to hear from us about how its actions have left a bad feeling about its brand in the aviation community.

I saw production of some entry-level scale kits stop because of Cessna's demand for royalty payments on a $20 product that was nothing but beneficial exposure for the company and depicted classic aircraft that Cessna had stopped producing long ago. Burns me up!

If you have further information about this scandal, please let me know.

— Dave Gee

Sources

  • Dave Gee

Box 7081 Van Nuys, CA 91409

Transcribed from original scans by AI. Minor OCR errors may remain.