Air-Minded Addendum: Hucks Starter

More on the Hucks starter I described in an earlier entry. One of the aircraft at the Pima Air & Space Museum, a Japanese WWII fighter,  used this starting method. When I was at the museum today I took a photo of the prop spinner so you could see the boss they’d hook the Hucks starter to in order to crank the engine.

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Hucks starter boss on a Nakajima KI-43-IIB Hayabusa (Falcon) at the Pima Air & Space Museum (photo: Paul Woodford)

As I mentioned before, the Japanese used Hucks starters well into WWII, as did the Soviets. Here’s a vintage photo of a Japanese Hucks starter unit used to crank then engines of medium bombers.

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Isuzu Hucks starter with Mitsubishi G4M “Betty” medium bomber

If you, like me, can’t get enough Hucks, click here. Warning: link contains serious gearhead pR0n; don’t say I didn’t warn you!

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