Howdy!Anybody know how the Boeing B-377 Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major engine starter works?Cheers,- jahman.

Howdy!Anybody know how the Boeing B-377 Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major engine starter works?Cheers,- jahman.

You can download for free the PDF manual for the A2A Wings of Silver Stratocruiser model. The real-life plane used that monster of an engine, and the pdf manual gives pictures and descriptions of all the aircraft controls, including starter sequence. Don't know if it'll help, but it's a fascinating read in itself.http://www.a2asimulations.com/377.html

Howdy!Anybody know how the Boeing B-377 Pratt & Whitney R-4360 Wasp Major engine starter works?

I've not found a direct reference to the starter system, but since the procedure calls for counting 20 blades of rotation prior to switching magnetos to BOTH, it definitely used an electric starter... ;)Here you can hear the starter motor grinding away: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1J-8q25TToHere is a very interesting description of the amazing feat of manual dexterity required by the FE during an engine start... :( http://www.enginehistory.org/r-4360ops1.htm

Thanks for sharing that! In A&P school, we got to take apart, inspect, rebuild, than run up on a test stand a Jacobs R-755. We were limited to 1000 Rpm.A little bit of trivia, All evens, then all odds was the firing order.

Sorry, other way around, It's been a while.

You can download for free the PDF manual for the A2A Wings of Silver Stratocruiser model. The real-life plane used that monster of an engine, and the pdf manual gives pictures and descriptions of all the aircraft controls, including starter sequence. Don't know if it'll help, but it's a fascinating read in itself.http://www.a2asimulations.com/377.html

Many thanks for the link! I fly the A2A B-377 myself and I agree the manual is very interesting. What I find the manual lacks, and I have not been able to find anywhere else, are the performance tables (Vref vs. Gross WT, 1- and 2-engine out optimal Altitudes and Vcruise vs. Gross weights, etc.) Any info on where to get these tables would be most welcome!

I've not found a direct reference to the starter system, but since the procedure calls for counting 20 blades of rotation prior to switching magnetos to BOTH, it definitely used an electric starter... ;)Here you can hear the starter motor grinding away: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K1J-8q25TToHere is a very interesting description of the amazing feat of manual dexterity required by the FE during an engine start... :( http://www.enginehistory.org/r-4360ops1.htm

Great video! I agree, the grinding sounds like a geared electric motor. (Counting blades before start must be a challenge, though... :-) The enginehistory link you provided is especially interesting for those of us who enjoy flyng the old proliners by-the-numbers.

Thanks for sharing that! In A&P school, we got to take apart, inspect, rebuild, than run up on a test stand a Jacobs R-755. We were limited to 1000 Rpm.A little bit of trivia, All evens, then all odds was the firing order.

Indeed, all radials have that firing order, as it's the only way to have cylinders firing on alternate crankshaft turns. Another bit if trivia just learned is that the engine had four low-voltage magnetos with two high-voltage coils for each cylinder! (56 total). These engines were quite something!Thanks again to all for your contributions.Cheers,- jahman.

Great video! I agree, the grinding sounds like a geared electric motor. (Counting blades before start must be a challenge, though... :-) The enginehistory link you provided is especially interesting for those of us who enjoy flyng the old proliners by-the-numbers.

Since the FE couldn't see them, the copilot would "count the blades" for him for the starboard side, the pilot would count the port engine blade turns.Just from the description, the FE really had a "finger dance" just to get 'em all started! It's a good thing there weren't eleven separate things to do at the same time though, else he'd have to have used some toes... :(

All in all, you can see why (among many other reasons) gas turbines soon made big piston engines obsolete. I guess a modern computerised engine management system could have done away with much of the finger-dancing though

All in all, you can see why (among many other reasons) gas turbines soon made big piston engines obsolete. I guess a modern computerised engine management system could have done away with much of the finger-dancing though

Yeah, but the fun part of flying was that it was hands-on; The auto-pilot was unreliable, inertial navigation was non-existent (The B-377 was the first aircraft to ever fly on inertial navigation from Boston to LAX, BTW), radio navigation was in its infancy, engines were not as reliable as one would desire, and you still had to cross 1,800 NM of ocean with 80 peaople on board to get to Hawaii. It gave a new meaning to "the joy of arriving".Sure these days you can automate the heck out flight, and they have: The unmanned Boeing X-37 (Shuttle replacement for the USAF) was lifted into space by an Atlas V rocket at Cape Canaveral in April 2010 and 8 months in december 2010 the X-34 landed at Vandenberg AFB in California after a fully automated de-orbit burn, atmospheric re-entry, aproach, flare, landing and full-stop on-runway. While I'm sure the engineers had a great time designing the automatic flight control systems, where's the fun for the pilots? Where are the pilots? :-)Cheers,- jahman.