My knowledge was that all engines (with large cubic capacity) were fitted with a "Schwungkraftanlasser".
If there was enough space, there was an electric motor mounted at the starter.
e.g. in the Bf109, there was no space.
A lot of aircraft from all countries had this option, if you'll watch some of the recently posted videos about Finland's airwar, you'll notice Curtiss Hawks and Buffaloes being hand cranked also.
very few electric starters acted directly on the engine like a car starter, Most wound up the flywheel of the inertia starter. once you have the flywheel and clutch mechanism adding the manual crank and gear train as a back-up is a minor problem and low in cost, bulk and weight.
It is funny you should say there was no space for a starter in the Me 109; there is. Several years ago an Me 109 was restored at Chino by David Price. Several Luftwaffe Aces were among the invited invited attendees. The aircraft was towed out and displayed and the pilot walked out and got into the cockpit.
The Luftwaffe Aces were looking around with curiosity and one remarked "Where is the batman?" meaning the guy who would wind up the hand crank. They were dumbfounded when the pilot engaged the electric starter and smoothy started the DB engine.
One of the Luftwaffe Aces remarked, "My God, if we had those we would have won the war!"
Does anyone have a drawing of inertia starter that is discussed here? Please share it.
I have such a question - inertia starter have to be rather massive flier to be capable to whirl 12-cyl engine. But in fact there is no spare mass on the fighter plane to fly with even couple tens waste kilos if they are needed only to start up.
So I guess that it could be centrifugal booster to be whirled by hand crank so it could start up the engine.
Ether inertia starter works in some other way? So how it is constructed how does it work?
Does anyone have a drawing of inertia starter that is discussed here? Please share it.
I have such a question - inertia starter have to be rather massive flier to be capable to whirl 12-cyl engine. But in fact there is no spare mass on the fighter plane to fly with even couple tens waste kilos if they are needed only to start up. In fact I never saw any fliers on draws of aircraft engines ether DB or any other ones.
So I guess that it could be centrifugal booster to be whirled by hand crank so it could start up the engine.
Or inertia starter works in some other way? So how it is constructed how does it work?