Warbird Information Exchange

The Coffman/ Breeze starter has a starter assembly on the accessorie case just like a normal electric starter but it has a 5.25 diameter ringed piston that pushes forward with the expanding gasses. When it moves forward it engages the starter dog and collapses two worm gears on top of each other which turns the piston movement into crankshaft rotation. Once the piston has reached the end of its travel, it opens a valve in the back to release the pressure "smoke burst out of the bottom of the engine" and returns via a die spring. It will give you about 2 revolutions of the propeller at a high rate of speed.

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Conrad Huffstutler

That's awesome. If there is any way you can get it to Oshkosh, you guys need to make it happen. I remember the story Jon SHoffner told me about buying his first warbird. He had a half million in his budget with the intent to buy the nicest Staggerwing he could find. He landed and parked his A36 Bonanza in the north parking. While walking through the warbird parking on his way to the antiques, he saw a huge beast with a massive propellor for sale. He bought it , a T-28B for sale by Pride Aircraft. Shoffner now owns the P-47D "Wicked Wabbit" , an HU-16, and other assets.
Mark Clark has a lot of pull at Oshkosh. It would be great to see it prominently displayed at Air SHow center, and maybe they could do a couple of cartridge starts for the crowd. Suggest marketing it as an archaelogical timepiece of U.S. Navy WW II history. Almost no one, including myself, has ever seen a cartridge start.

Yes we plan to go to Oshkosh with it. We are already scheduled to do a shotgun start at warbirds in review along with the Wildcat that just came out of lake Michigan.

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Conrad Huffstutler

May I recommend that your deck crew be in period uniforms............you will be a show stopper with that.

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Long Live the N3N-3 "The Last US Military Bi-Plane" 1940-1959
Badmouthing Stearmans on WIX since 2005

>The Wildcat takes a "C" cartridge...............

Is there a possible variation in TYPE C cartridges?

Examples of "C's" in my collection appear shorter than those shown, as they headspace at about 2.625 inches unfired. Made by the Atlas Powder Company, they are electrically primed instead of percussion. I have been advised to avoid potential accumulations of static electricity as these were known to fire in as little as 2 vdc. –Adrian

Cool stuff - thanks for the post. I thought that the use of the phrase "shotgun" just referred to the fact that it was a quicker method of starting the engine (ref. the sense of the word meaning "quick", viz. shotgun wedding). I never knew it involved the use of an actual (albeit blank) shotgun cartridge. The more you know!

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Tri-State Warbird Museum Collections Manager & Museum Attendant

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