Warbird Information Exchange

Thought y'all might be interested in seeing the first shotgun start of our FM-2 Wildcat.

http://youtu.be/65qrzgbTTcQ

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Conrad Huffstutler

Many thanks for posting, Conrad.

Any chance she'll be coming north for the little Wisconsin fly-in?

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It was a good idea, it just didn't work.

Hey thanks for posting that Conrad. I've really missed the updates you used to do on the restorations. I enjoyed seeing the high calibre (pun slightly intended ) of craftsmanship that you and your team showed.
Is there any possibility of getting new cartridges made for the starter? or do you have a big enough supply that it shouldn't be an issue? I would think that depending on 70+ year old shells would be a bit uncertain. I guess your video shows that the problem is mine alone
The aircraft looks fantastic. I look forward to anything else you care to share.

Andy Scott

Very cool. How many of the original cartridges do you have on hand?

Cool....what is all the liquid comming from the engine bay! Rinse off water leftovers!?

Very nice. My first instructor in A&P school was a young Navy mechanic in WW2. They worked Wildcats and Hellcats, both with shotgun starters. The load for the Hellcat was larger so the cartridge was longer. If they had trouble starting a Wildcat they would use a Hellcat load and it would usually do the trick. As he said, "We were all teenagers and didn't know better."

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"I can't understand it, I cut it twice and it's still too short!" Robert F. Dupre' 1923-2010 Go With God.

Whenever I think of shotgun starts it reminds me of the crucial scene where Jimmy Stewart attempts to start the "plane" the plane crash survivors built in the movie Flight of the Phoenix.

Thanks for posting Conrad! It's great to see old technology like this revived and recorded for posterity.

I have 11 cans of original cartridges now, 21 shells per can. Should hold us over for a while. I also made 35 full brass cartridges that can be reloaded, I just have to get some .25, and .18 diameter cordite pellets. We pulled all of the front plugs the day before the start and turned it through quickly to build oil pressure and purge the pump. Lower 4 plugs were pulled prior to start to eliminate hydrolic lock. The starter assembly has a burst disk that goes at 3200psi, and it is supposed to protect agains a hydrolic locked cylinder. The whole assembly should be cleaned every 50 starts and the manual says the burst disk decays after a bunch of starts and should be replaced every once and a while. The Wildcat takes a "C" cartridge and im not sure what the Hellcat took but it most likely has a hotter load. Im sure if you used them to much you would be blowing the burst disks quite a bit. The mixture arm jumped a few notches before I tightened it so what I thought was idle cutoff was actually half mixture, thus the large amount of fuel pouring out the supercharger drain when I had the emergency fuel pump on. I was making bets that it would start on the second cartridge, but it lit of on the first shot to my surprise.

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Conrad Huffstutler

Thanks for posting the vid! That is just so cool!

Officially......."Coffman starter". Thanks for the video...........John

Could someone explains how the shotgun starter works? I've always been curious

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"According to the map, we've only gone 4 inches."

The coffman starter simply uses a load of cordite to create high pressure air to turn over the engine, essentially an air starter in a very small can.

The Wiki article was largely written by a guy who I know from another forum and did a lot of research on it for some stuff over in the UK where such starters were in normal use up until the IDF Tornado was introduced and they switched to bottled rapid start.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coffman_engine_starter

Here's a video of the Coffman Starter used by British jet designs - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KePs8Rd7DN8
Another of a Canberra using the same system - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g9fkmqPHTDE

And one of a B-52 Coffman start - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cBfwtrwesjQ

Very cool. Great to see another Wildcat headed for flight.


Chappie

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Brrring. Dispersal? TWO SECTIONS SCRAMBLE!!

OOOHHHH Outstanding job!! Authenticity give me a chubby.........yes I will admit it.

Thanks for posting the Venom start. Was a nice reminder when dean had those up here. The VT ANG was the last to have the B-57 and I remember the black smoke well.


Gotta love original start methods
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4vNlQ_IZh6o

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Long Live the N3N-3 "The Last US Military Bi-Plane" 1940-1959
Badmouthing Stearmans on WIX since 2005