Jerry J. Wass wrote:

Boris Beizer wrote:


"Frank Stutzman" wrote in message
...

Boris Beizer wrote:



It is a compressed gas starter. A shell .. looks like a shotgun shell..

is

fired which provides the compressed gas that is used to turn the engine
over. It was, I believe, used as an emergency starting method for older
radial engines.

I don't think it was compressed gas. It was gun powder of some form.

The burning of the gunpowder in the shotgun shell provided the compressed
gas. Sorry not to have made it clear. That's what I meant.

Boris


Also used in some jets---A British jet that we adopted & changed the wingspan
several times--Reconniasance I think


snip

The Martin B-57 (and the derivative RB-57) twin jet bomber. These were
USA made versions of the British "Canberra" bomber. The biggest obvious
difference was that the Canberra had side-by-side seating for the
cockpit crew, and the Martin version used tandem seating. All were quite
advanced light bombers for the time.

The RD versions were modified with far larger wings, for high altitude
operations. They were sort-of an oversized U2, for photo reconnaissance
spy missions, and high altitude research.

Dan Mitchell
============