Round Engines

[ILLINI]

Copied from another message board:

Enjoy!




ROUND ENGINES

We gotta get rid of these 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 it needs kerosene after a while. My PC is harder to start.

Cranking a round engine requires skill, finesse and style. Only pilots and mechanics can do it right. Turbines start by whining for a while, then give a small lady-like poot and start whining louder.


Round engines give a satisfying clank-rattle, click-click, BANG, more rattles, groans another BANG, a big macho fart or two, more clicks, a lot of fire and 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 ready for a fight 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 long flights. Turbines smell like a Boy Scout camp full of Coleman lanterns. Round engine airplanes smell like God intended flying machines to smell.

 

[Rvrrat]

Sing it Illini!
Thankfully there are a couple DC-3s still operating out of LGB; the folks in Bixby Knolls claim them to be obnoxious noisemakers when in fact the ships are more harmonious than the Philharmonic.

Thanks for the post!

 

[nosewheel]

Round is great

One of the Greatest joys in my career as a PFE was starting the R-2800 (on the DC-6) without popping the motor. It was the Flight Engineers job and after some of practice became a work of art, especially in sub zero temperature's. It was a real boost to the ego to crank one without a single fart, in front of God and everyone watching and listening . Many beers were won and lost.