Starting the Engines as I recollect on DC-3

Sept. 23,. 2021

 

 from Journal possible 4/28/99 or there about
 

Starting the engines starts with the check list and of course, before that, draining water called sumping the water from  the fuel tanks. With a plastic tube in hand that has a short metal rod attached one pokes the metal rod up into the fuel sump valve and water and gas may drain down and collect into the tube at which point one determines how much water is. in it and if it needs sumping again. One sumps all  the fuel tanks until nothing but gas drains out and the engines are not likely after starting to inject any water as they are running which is important because just a little water could cause an engine to shut down.

Carb heat off and locked, Cowl flaps open and off. Battery switch on, fuel tank selectors in main position, fuel quantity indicator, Ignition switch on,  Clear the right Engine, clear right, crack the throttle,  count the blade turns, start the booster pump at 9 turns, start tickling the primer button at 12 turns, turn on right magnetos, turn on the right booster pump, engine backfires from inexperience guy starting it. Don’t give up, watch for leaking fuel below the engine cowl, throttle position lever cracked, Mixture lever idle cutoff, a second fire in the collector, check for leaking fuel from the carburetor, none, keep cranking, don’t give up. 3rd backfire, then the engine catches, hold the primer, button stop with the starter button, let it stabilize a minute, move mixture lever from idle cutoff to rich mixture or is it lean mixture? I went to rich mixture, let go of the primer, turn off booster pumps, adjust idle to about 800 rpm, check oil pressure, good, watch CHT and oil pressure and oil temp check the manifold pressure for about 30 lbs.  

Repeat procedure for Left engine. I then ran engine individually to about 1500-1700 rpm’s and exercised the props. After bringing the idles back to 800 rpm conducted mag checks and let engines stabilize then one at a time, pulled the mixture lever to idle cutoff. I did it, and went to the shutdown check list and I was out of there. I put the oil  drip pans under the engines, turned the props so they were all oriented the same, wiped down the landing gear struts and the cowls on the engines.

September 23. 2021

And it is even more of a leap than that, my time traveling. As I listen to Roger waters and his band, Pink Floyd takes me back 50 years to sitting in my DS 19 Citroen at the property in Williams Oregon where I worked at least through a summer and part of a winter before moving back to CA. I never imagined what life would be like at 71 but here I am. I have not anything consistently and even my writing has not been consistent, but what writer has done constant writing. I have been writing over 40 years, all of it in paper journals into about 20 years in and then computers and lost much of it. Who cares about all that. It is what I do now that counts, always has and I have never more aware of how important the present is than now,. Just now.

I listen to these great musicians and they have been doing something, building on their music pushing into the future building on their foundations, enjoying what they are doing and feeling incredibly blessed to have come out on the other side of time, I am certain.

I watched 1 1/2 movies this morning with Adam I am sorry who had open heart surgery about a month ago and he in my opinion he is withering away. He sits and half sleeps and sometimes awake, but he is in denial about seriousness of his health condition, still smoking and that was a blow to me. The man has no will to live. I doubt that he has had much a will to live since his wife died. Wow.