Of all the PA30's I have flown, not one of them would come out of
feather until the engine was running and developing enough oil
pressure to twist the blades back into high RPM. The starter alone is
not enough to make this happen Most, if not all, of the start
procedure is completed while the blades are still feathered, making
for a whole lot of shakin' till it gets running again.




On Thu, 31 Jul 2003 17:57:38 GMT, Chris Kennedy
wrote:

Julian Scarfe wrote:

[snip]

Unfortunately, it didn't restart fine. I was very close to a "uh, we've
painted ourselves into a corner, here" call to ATC and a real engine-out
arrival, when at the 6th attempt in a 1000 fpm dive at 130 KIAS it finally
came back to life. Fortunately we'd been careful to get ourselves plenty of
altitude before the shutdown.

Any tips on air restarts from the other PA30 drivers out there? I think we
followed the POH to the letter, in particular, mixture RICH for the start.
Is that really best? Why does it differ from the ground start procedure?

I'm going to assume from your description that the prop promptly
unfeathered and windmilled when you cranked it -- the starter should
certainly be able to spin things fast enough to get enough oil pressure
to take the prop out of feather -- and that what you're describing is a
situation where you're looking at the left window at a windmilling prop
while trying to avoid conducting a what-not-to-do Vmc demo.

A secured engine gets seriously cold in flight -- and in a hurry. An
[I}O-360 can be surprisingly difficult to start after being shut down
for just a few minutes (enough so that I don't think I'd even consider
doing something like this on, say, an Aztec with 540s).

Cowl flaps closed, max RPM, mixture full rich, mags in start
configuration, maybe a shot of prime if the CHTs have fallen through the
floor, crank until you come out of feather, then add a bit of throttle
until you have signs of life -- all while remembering to fly the
airplane. Mags to run configuration, adjust the mixture and unless you
need the engine back _right now_, when it does come to live nurse it
along at a low power setting until the temps start to look normal, then
reset power on both engines. Don't forget to close the cowl flaps on
the engine you left running when it settles back down...

IMHO everyone should have to experience an actual shutdown and air start
as part of their ME training. There's something seriously disconcerting
about looking out the window at a prop that's not turning and air starts
always seem to require both coaxing and pleading in equal measure -- as
well as three hands (one each for yoke, throttle and starter).