A new book in my library. (4 Viewers)

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Cheers Terry. I will probably still get Carl Shiletto's 'Merville Battery and the Dives Bridges' book at some stage, to have a complete set of information on them.
 
Two today. The first is for COMPRESSED Gas starters for aircraft engines.

A little history. In WWI when engines became too hard to hand prop B.C. Huck, a test pilot for the Aircraft Manufacturing Co., Ltd. (AIRCO) of Great Britain invented the Huck starter. Naturally some people wanted starters that were completely self contained on aircraft and the batteries of the day were very heavy low output lead acid units where the voltage dropped rapidly as the air temperature dropped. As well as this, and the electric starters of the day being heavy, these were not suitable for use in all weathers because the acid would freeze and expand splitting the battery case and as soon as the battery got warm acid would leak all over whatever was nearby. More modern lead acid aircraft batteries had improved technology and more concentrated acid which resulted in smaller lighter batteries that could withstand somewhat lower temperatures but still needed heaters or continuous charging or removing from the aircraft in sub zero C temperatures.

To remedy this the Brits then came up with pneumatic starters and these could be self contained if the engine had a compressor and/or the air receiver could be charged from an external source. This whole installation weighed not much more than an electric starter and was barely affected by cold weather. Other countries also adopted pneumatic start systems and the Russians still use them today because even modern batteries have problems with low temperatures. Modern gas systems still only weigh about the same as the electric starter used on modern US engine so the system is lighter overall.



The second is an aircraft that used this starting system.

 
I love real books too but as my eyesight is now very variable (one minute I can read three point text, an hour later I might need 14pt or somewhere in the middle) I am using my kindle for reading almost all fiction and reading manuals on my large desktop screen. Fortunately I started scanning my manuals and posting them on line so for many I can "instantly" access them on the computer. The rest I am working through as time permits.
 
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