What to do when the starter dies...

Crism · October 9th, 2006, 09:59

After getting my PPL about 2 weeks ago, I decided to go on another flight with a friend today. Weather's CLEAR skies all over New England. About 2 hrs before the flight, I get the call. The plane's starter died this morning and they don't have another plane to put me in. I got mad of course. So now I'm contemplating what to do today:

A. Go another local airport and take pictures and beg for rides
B. Go to work
C. Sit at home

If I beg for rides, what's a polite way to do it without sounding pushy or rude?

TFaudree_ERAU · October 9th, 2006, 10:03

Hand prop it!

If you have a high res professional style camera (35mm SLR or DSLR), you could offer a high quality print of the aircraft (takeoff rotation, touchdown, static, etc) in exchange for a short flight around the area

OldTownPilot · October 9th, 2006, 12:12

Yea, Hand start it. Its not that hard on a 150, a 172 cn be a little more stubborn. Just be careful doing it.

TXaviator · October 9th, 2006, 12:40

hand prop for the win

TFaudree_ERAU · October 9th, 2006, 13:32

OK, so it wasn't

when I said hand prop it, but really, get someone to do it who is is trained to do it and has done it before. You can always find someone that "knows" how to do it through hangar talk/lessons, but the technique is not taught very often anymore (for safety and insurance reasons) and shouldn't be attempted by everyone.

I had a starter grind up a flywheel a while back as a CFI and I cancelled the lesson because I couldn't find anyone to hand prop it for me, and I sure has heck wasn't going to make my first try at it and HOPE that my brand new student was holding the brakes as instructed and wouldn't accidentally push the throttle the wrong way to set 1000 RPM after start.