It’s the ultimate anticlimax. Flight planning is complete, weather checked, fuel topped off, and the preflight inspection complete. Passengers are briefed and belted in. They wait in giddy excitement as you run the engine-start checklist.
Anticipation builds as the mixture goes to rich, you prime, set throttle, open the window, and yell, “Prop clear.” Master switch on, ignition switch to Start.
And nothing happens. Now what?
How you answer that question can raise your stock as a safety-conscious pilot, or it could make you the star of a YouTube runaway-airplane video—even result in a trip to the hospital for you, your passenger, or a total stranger standing nearby. In many pilot’s operating handbooks, it is a simple matter to look up procedures for different engine-start scenarios. For example, the procedures for starting the engine provided in a 1980 Cessna 152’s POH address three scenarios: warm weather, temperatures near freezing, and starting an engine that is “still warm from previous operation.” Cessna warns that when following any procedure, treat the propeller “as if the ignition switch is turned on.”
Cautions notwithstanding, sudden starts still catch pilots by surprise. If the pilot failed to make sure that the aircraft was secured, with switches and controls in proper position, the operation quickly can become a hazard to all parties involved. (So keep an eye on any such activity you observe on your ramp.)
An unexpected response to hand-propping caused an unsecured Cirrus SR22 to cross a ramp and strike a ditch in Eden Prairie, Minnesota, on Decenber 6, 2012, after the pilot’s effort to engage the starter was unsuccessful.
“The pilot said he turned off the battery master switch, exited the airplane, and walked around to the front of the airplane. He reached through the door and thought the ignition key was off. He pushed the propeller down through one compression stroke. The engine immediately started. The pilot jumped on the left wing, but fell off. The airplane traveled across the ramp and struck a ditch between runways 28R and 28L, breaking off the nose gear and buckling the firewall. Postaccident examination disclosed the ignition switch functioned normally,” according to a National Transportation Safety Board accident summary, establishing probable cause as “the pilot’s failure to ensure the airplane was secured prior to attempting an engine start by hand-propping.”
Pilots engaged in extraordinary means of starting an aircraft must remember to keep a careful eye on bystanders, whose reactions can be unpredictable. In Albemarle, North Carolina, a recently flown Cessna 172 was being restarted using an external power supply on December 2, 2012, when the engine suddenly produced “a loud noise” as the owner was disconnecting the cables, according to a local newspaper report. The student pilot who had been flying the airplane with an instructor, who had been standing behind the airplane during the start-up operation, had moved forward, and was struck on the left arm by the rotating propeller. The student’s arm was severed in the accident, the report said. The NTSB’s online accident summary noted that “neither the owner nor the instructor observed the student walk from the rear of the airplane to the front until the airplane’s engine made an unusual sound, and they then noticed the student running from the front of the airplane.” The NTSB determined probable cause as “the student pilot’s failure to remain clear of the airplane’s rotating propeller.”
A stark illustration of the risks of hand propping can be viewed on YouTube in an old training film made when a cameraman happened to be present when a pilot attempted to hand-start an untied, unchocked taildragger with a passenger aboard (www.youtube.com/watch?v=AeTM-paAXCo). Give it a glance. Then recalibrate your ideas about start-up scenarios and safety.
Mahogany was the wood most used to make propellers through World War I.
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