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Old 05-27-10, 08:35 AM   #16
Arclight
Navy Seal
 
Join Date: Jun 2008
Location: Land of windmills, tulips, wooden shoes and cheese. Lots of cheese.
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Default Dealing with a cranky engine

Every now and then, you'll have to deal with an engine that won't start. Whether it is because of damage or user error, there's 1 procedure you can try to get it back in order again.

It's called cranking the engine, and is used to purge excess fuel from an engine. Basically, you turn the engine without supplying more fuel, driving out what fuel is present already.


Technically, you should engage the rotor brake, but since we don't have to deal with braindead groundcrew wandering too close to our helo, I don't think it's nescesary.

What you do is use the normal start-up procedure with the start-up mode selector set to "crank" (switch next to engine selector, has 3 modes for: "engine start", "crank" and "false start"; up, middle and down position respectively), except turning on EEG isn't nescesary because you're not trying to fire up the engine, and you leave out the last part of opening the cutoff valve when the engine spools up to 20% (denying fuel to engine).

What you'll see is the start-valve light come on as normal, and the engine spools up to above 20% as normal (if it doesn't, you've got bigger problems). Again, don't open the cutoff valve at this point, just wait untill the light turns off and the engine spools down. Then set the mode selector back to "engine start" and start as normal.
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