why I miss the old engines....

bluesideup · Post by **bluesideup** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 1:36 pm

Why I miss the old DH Beaver ---

We gotta get rid of turbines, they are ruining aviation. We need to go back to big round engines. Anybody can start a turbine, you just need to move a switch from "OFF" to "START," and then remember to move it back to "ON" after a while. My PC is harder to start. Cranking a round engine requires skill, finesse and style. On some planes, the pilots are not even allowed to do it.

Turbines start by whining for a while, then give a small lady-like poot and start whining louder.

Round engines give a satisfying rattle-rattle, click-click BANG, more rattles, another BANG, a big macho fart or two, more clicks, a lot of smoke and finally a serious low pitched roar. We like that. It's a guy thing. When you start a round engine, your mind is engaged and you can concentrate on the flight ahead.

Starting a turbine is like flicking on a ceiling fan: Useful, but hardly exciting. Turbines don't break often enough, leading to aircrew boredom, complacency and inattention. A round engine at speed looks and sounds like it's going to blow at any minute. This helps concentrate the mind. Turbines don't have enough control levers to keep a pilot's attention There's nothing to fiddle with during the flight.

Turbines smell like a Boy Scout camp full of Coleman lanterns. Round engines smell like God intended flying machines to smell.

I think I hear the nurse coming down the hall. I gotta go.

xsbank · Post by **xsbank** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 6:51 pm

If you ever get a chance to see a T-33 start up on its own batteries you'll change your mind about "ladylike poot(s)"

C-150Pilot · Post by **C-150Pilot** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 7:07 pm

I love engines that go round and round

jackrabbit · Post by **jackrabbit** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 8:36 pm

Love the spring time when you hear those old radials cough to life tied up to the dock. That's what spring is!!!!! Just like watching girls in bikini's. Unfortunatley, if you're in a place to hear the former, there probably won't be too many of the latter

flyinhigh · Post by **flyinhigh** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 9:01 pm

ah yes, I nothing but agree to this.
there is nothing like the radials, I love the look, sound, and every other thing about them.
I especally love how deafening they are when there on the take-off roll, rattling everything around it.

R1830 · Post by **R1830** » Tue Mar 15, 2005 9:06 pm

My first t/o in a C-46 was on a very cold day it was so loud i figured something had to be wrong.....

Something was wrong...I was in a C-46...ahhhhhh...

but they sound cool

twinpratts · Post by **twinpratts** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 4:48 am

reading that post brings a tear to my eye...

grimey · Post by **grimey** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 5:09 am

For what it's worth, I curse the relevant operator whenever a Turbo Otter flies into Thompson. The radials work just fine, and and the radial Beavers and Otters we have stationed here look better too, IMO. Haven't (fortunately) seen a Turbo Beaver yet.

grimey · Post by **grimey** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 5:12 am

bluesideup wrote:Turbines don't break often enough, leading to aircrew boredom, complacency and inattention.

Given what's happened in Thompson in the last week or so, I find this hilarious.

Big Pistons Forever · Wed Mar 16, 2005 11:09 am

When I joined avcanada I was sitting between a pair of mighty 1820's

Unfortunately I have since moved over to a pair of stink pots

I am still keeping my handle in the hope I may one day again relive the glory days of aviation.

dgeb · Post by **dgeb** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 1:59 pm

8000 off - 8000 on - 5 gallons and a coffe to go.

Skipper · Post by **Skipper** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 2:43 pm

I have to say

Hearing a two ship of CL 215's cruise overhead on a hot summer day gives me a sense of what it must have been like to be standing in an English Airfield back in Dubya Dubya 2 watching bombers and transports headin' for the mainland. Awe inspiring no doubt

Here's to radials. May they continue to attempt to beat themselves to death for many years to come!

Cat Driver · Post by **Cat Driver** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 3:05 pm

Well I guess there is still some hope for big piston pounding radials because we will start to make smoke and noise on Saturday when we fire up the Dutch Cat to get ready for the start of the airshow season on March 25/26/27 at Lleystad in the Netherlands..

Hopefully they will find an engine for the Connie because I have been asked if I would be interested in flying that for them also this year, now there is the ultimate piston pounding airplane.

Cat

bigred · Post by **bigred** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 3:17 pm

2 years ago i heard the sweetest thing ever while standing between 2 thousand hp polish radials. The way they were parked on the ramp if you stood between the 2 of them you were stack side on them man that was a sweet nois and i will always remember the ground shaking while standing next to a dirt strip while a AT 401 took off ahh the sweet sound and smell of the radial.

ahramin · Post by **ahramin** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 5:12 pm

For Charlie

We gotta get rid of those piston round engines, they're ruining aviation and our tarmac, especially the ice-aprons.
A piston round engine is way too simple in design.
Air gets sucked in, gets humped, then regurgitated out a little hole like an endless FART.
Even my kid brother can do that too!

Anybody can start a piston round engine. You just turn a knob, or key, then wait for the Richter Scale to reach 9.6.
You'll know it has started when your Attitude Indicator has a convulsion.
The battery will usually die first before you get a chance to roast anything! Heck, you can even start it with your bare hand.

Starting a Turbine Engine requires dexterity, flair and guts. You have to talk nice to it, press the mighty START button with your most soothing finger, and pray like hell for the computer to work and won't let you roast the 5 million-dollar engine.

Piston round engines starts by humping itself for a bit, then shakes to a point where you wish the manufacturer had used the correct sized rivets on your airplane.

Turbine engines first give out a warning siren-like whine, before a series of "tick tick tick" to make sure the rhythm is correct, then a macho "POOF" to get the crowd's attention, followed by a breath-taking light-show (if night time), while the concerto of low frequency bass kicks off the master symphony of ROAR! Now the pilots have got no choice but get ready to party!

Starting a piston round engine is like going for a ride before they invented the ROUND wheel: exciting, but hardly efficient.
After you've started your turbine engines successfully, your crew chief gazes proudly, as his powerful engines pick up foreign objects from the ground, like paper, sands, and baggage carts. If you can tip over the fuel truck, you'll see he'll jump with joy with arms waving and stuff.

Because piston round engine pilots are always on 5th gear mentally, waiting for something to break, this can lead to Prolonged Hysteria Syndrome (PHS).

A turbine engine at speed looks and sounds like it hasn't even been started. This helps the crew to continuously stay awake to cross check the engine gauges to make sure they are still running.

Piston round engines don't have enough engine gauges to make the cockpit looks sophisticated. Passengers may discovery how little we actually do! More gauges like EPR, N1, and N2 boggle their minds, deluding them into thinking that our job is really really tough. And also, terms like ECAM, MCDU, and EFIS really impress the women into thinking that you are Buck Rogers or something.

Piston round engines smell like a beat-up old 1978 Civic just drove by.
Turbine engines smell like what most 250-hour pilots like to smell.

"Life is not a journey to the grave with the intention of arriving earlier, but rather to crawl by at Mach 0.83, with crew meal served hot on your sliding table, totally full tummy, totally drained by After-meal Syndrome, and proudly proclaiming, "WOW... ARE THOSE ENGINES STILL RUNNING? I CAN HARDLY HEAR IT!"

flyinhigh · Post by **flyinhigh** » Wed Mar 16, 2005 7:52 pm

ahramin- kiss off, haha
have you ever flowen a radial. it takes a pilot to fly a radial, turbine, wow now there is something hard to do.
the only good thing about a turbine is reverse for when you have icing strips in the middle of winter.

Intentional Left Bank · Thu Mar 17, 2005 12:26 am

I always enjoyed starting radials on a cold morning. But by god, I don't miss flying around in the bumps on a hot summer day, staring with great concentration at the fuel pressure gauge, waiting for the flicker that would be my signal to start the frantic wobbling. It always seemed to take 45 minutes from the time the fuel gauge read empty until the time the tank was actually empty. And the ten seconds looking at something other than the fuel pressure gauge were the ten seconds in which the engine would start to sputter and send my passengers into a fright.

I also don't miss taxiing around the lake for fifteen minutes waiting for the oil temperature to hit 40. I don't miss waiting a month for the engineer to put the heater on in the fall, thus having the double joy of a frozen elevator trim AND frozen fingers and toes. I don't miss the hair-raising experience of taking a wave through the heater intake and having instant fog in the cockpit (thought it was smoke the first time!). I don't miss having to fight to regain the 200 ft altitude lost in turbulence, using every weapon at my disposal including flaps, taking a full minute to get back up to desire height.

Nostalgia is all fine and good, but I'd rather be at ten thousand feet in no time at all, sipping my coffee, secure in the knowledge that if the fan quits, I can feather the prop and glide to any one of the 10 different lakes within gliding range that strikes my fancy.

Meatservo · Post by **Meatservo** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 7:53 am

Hey Grimey- I got news for you, the turbines work even better! You might be able to fool the fans, but you can't fool the players- I don't know any Turbo Otter pilot who misses the piston. It feels and sounds like you're sitting in a steel trash can while someone tries to beat you to death from the outside with a rubber bat. The turbine, on the other hand, climbs with its flaps UP (imagine that) and makes it to the hundred hour without swallowing a valve, busting a master rod, losing a cyl. head, shearing an accessory drive, losing teeth from those little fibre gears that drive the mags, etc, etc, etc,etc.

On the other hand, have any of you seen a steam locomotive? Those things are impressive for the same reason as radials are- they seem alive, and you feel like you can viscerally sense every unit of power that seems to blow right through you on its way out the stack. I love them. And if you want to see one, some museums still operate them on a limited basis once in a while. This should be the case with radial piston engines too.

I am Birdfod · Post by **I am Birdfod** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 8:01 am

Some of you guys belong in museums.

flyinhigh · Post by **flyinhigh** » Thu Mar 17, 2005 8:20 am

that is percisely the point, the turbine may fly better, but come on to fly a radial is like no other.
I personally love the fact of gettin up a 5:00 walk down to the dock, load up hop into the beaver giver a few primes, crank the starter over, then start sipping on the coffee while you let the old girl warm up.
Couple of years ago there was a american that didn't want to fly in the caravan, he said he wanted a really flying expierence in a realy airplane.

why I miss the old engines....

why I miss the old engines....

Re: why I miss the old engines....

old engines