Flight of the Phoenix redux

Gosh, Boris,

I guess you didn't like it.

-- Bob (Chief Pilot, White Knuckle Airways)

I recall this thread happening about five years ago, and IIRC it was indeed Gary who pointed out the real way those work. I'm suprised he hasn't commented here.

Jim

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 ============

The man responsible was Roscoe Alexander Coffman and his first patent for the starter was #1776228 granted in 1930. Breeze Corp made starters under his patents. Bendix-Pioneer were also licensees.

Tom

I have seen some Chinese tractors with an interesting variation- its a spring starter- you wind up a coil spring with a ratchet and then release it to spin the motor over-

The original was a classic and heroic production. Thanks for the warning about the 'cover version' I won't be tempted by it.

Regards Mark Rand

Different system. The Coffman style starter utilised the gas of the cartridge to power the starter which rotated the engine. The Marshalls used a cartridge vented into the cylinder head to act on the piston to start the engine.

Tom

I saw the original Phoenix, and it was pretty bogus, too. Almost anything Hollywood produces that has airplanes and flying in it has some outlandish flight behaviour, pilot talk and mechanical setups. As a pilot and mechanic, it gets painful sometimes. No wonder the non-flying public is so misinformed and scared. I would imagine that Hollywood hires technical advisors to keep the aeronautical themes accurate, and then ignores their advice anyway. Got to make it spectacular, you know.

Dan

How bogus was the original? The actually built a Phoenix and flew it. As I recall, a stunt pilot got killed in a crash of the Phoenix during the filming. Beg to differ. Both the book and the movie (original) were well researched and totally feasible. How about some examples of these putative errors?

Boris

Yep, that's the fellow. He's distant kin. His line and mine both come down from John Coffman. John Coffman was the first blacksmith in Kentucky. John's grandson Jacob was Roscoe's father.

Roscoe not only invented the Coffman starter, he also invented the first practical variable prop pitch mechanism. Roscoe's son Morris at one time owned a chunk of what is now the Vegas strip. He sold it to Howard Hughes in 1968. I once met Morris at a Coffman family reunion in Henderson Kentucky.

(We used to have huge family reunions held at Audubon State Park each August. Coffmans scattered all over the country would come back to attend. Sadly, that ended a few years after my father died in 1962.)

Gary