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Strange you should say that. When I worked at the flying club we often had a number of air cadets, usually CCF lads from Lancing College, taking flying scholarships during the summer months. The ones I was involved with in the 2 years I was there were all nice lads & willing to do anything to help. They enjoyed refuelling the aircraft, moving them around, taxying them to & from the hangar on the other side of the airfield & suchlike but the thing they all seemed to want to do most was swing those props. I never figured out why. When they asked me to teach them I told them to speak to the CFI (Chief Flying Instructor) about it as I couldn't do it without his permission. Health & safety regulations weren't as strict as they are now but it was still a big responsibility for someone the same age as them. I'm proud to say they all took notice of what I told them & we never had a single mishap. My being a senior NCO in the ATC at the time didn''t do any harm. Those boys were a great help to me as the club was run on a small budget. I enjoyed having them around.

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That's a good point. It seems obvious but it might be easy to forget if you fly both fixed-wing & helicopters. I've never been involved with helicopters myself. Never flown in one either.

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Yeah, Air Cadets are great kids - by and large lots of fun to work with  with tons of heart. I worked with them right through my Army career, teaching, setting up dog 'n ponies, etc. Bringing 20 or so teens out into the field for a weekend with the reg. force and let them pretend and have fun - tons of fun for all. The real fun was when we occasionally reciprocated; letting the soldiers who helped out come to a Cadet gliding weekend. Great to see the kids suddenly in their element; bossing the soldiers around.

As for swinging props; it'd never be allowed nowadays with perhaps overly-cautious safety rules, but they'd all love to.

I'm just a total chickensh#$ about that sort of thing though.

Ah, we've all done our share of stupid things. I certainly have. The first thing I was taught about swinging props was NEVER do it on your own without someone in the cockpit. I thought this was simply because I was young & inexperienced as I'd seen others doing it. One day I found out for myself how dangerous it can be. Our aircraft were not only hand-swung but they were taildraggers without wheel brakes which meant you never started the engine without chocks in place. A combination of no chocks & swinging the prop on your own can be potientially fatal as I found out. Needless to say, the first time was the last I attempted anything so stupid.

A chap I worked with had worked at Gatwick Airport when it was a small grass airfield. He obviously had lots of fascinating stories to tell. Apparently one of the private owners he knew had a Piper Cub which can be hand swung by someone standing behind the prop. This also gives access to the throttle & mag switches. Anyway, this chap often used this method to start his Cub & one day forgot to set the brakes. I have no idea what he was doing but the throttle must have been fully open. When the engine fired it ran flat out. With no brakes it proceeded to take off & fly around on its own quite nicely. It ended up buried in the side of a hangar roof. Meanwhile, the ower had been knocked over by the wing struts.* He was lucky just to lose the aircraft.  If he'd swung the prop in the conventional way by standing in front of it he wouldn't have had a chance. It doesn't bear thinking about.

*PS. Come to think of it, he might have had his hand on the throttle. When the aircraft moved forward he pushed it open as he fell over.

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I imagine whoever told you that was a pilot. It certainly wasn't the poor clod that has to swing the props. I would much rather have a mechanic in there myself. No offence to any pilots here but they never had too good a reputation with us lot in the hangar. Never knew quite what daft thing they would get up to next. I could tell you few horror stories but that can wait till some other time.

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Very interesting. Not sure I've come across this before. The old Cub is an amazing little plane.

PS. I just looked at that photo. Are you sure that's an L-4? Looks more like an L-5 to me. http://www.warbirdalley.com/l5.htm

I haven't done it for over 40 years but I reckon I could hand-swing a prop now if I had to. It's perfectly safe providing you know the procedure & follow the rules. All aircraft & engines have their own little ways. I would never attempt to swing a prop unless the wheels were chocked, even on aircraft with parking brakes. Most aircraft carry a set of chocks on board nowadays.

PS. I wouldn't feel confident swinging the US engines with clockwise rotation (viewed from the cockpit) fitted to most modern lght aircraft. We had an Auster 5 at Shoreham with a Lycoming engine. Although I was highly experienced & swung our own aircraft every day the owner wouldn't let me try it as he said it was far too dangerous. All our aircraft had engines with counter-clockwise rotation so they were swung with the right hand. This would obviously depend on whether you were right or left-handed. Most people seemed to be right-handed in my young days.

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There's good & bad in everything. I've met a few pilots over the years who should never have been allowed anywhere near an aeroplane. The chief pilot of a small airline run by my boss had very little idea of what went on under the bonnet (hood) & refused to listen to the advice of our chief engineer at the time. Consequently he was always reporting faults that he'd caused himself by not following the correct procedures. I'm sure he never appreciated that & probably still doesn't. He didn't last long & the last I heard of him he was flying for a major airline.

I recall an incident at Biggin Hill where the chief pilot of another airline smashed up a perfectly good aircraft during a "forced" wheels-up landing. This was entirely due to him not knowing how to operate the emergency gear pump which was found to be fully serviceable after the incident. The pump handle had to be pulled out from under the panel before pumping it up & down in the usual way. I seem to remember that this was written in big letters on the big red knob on the end of the handle. "Emergency Only - Pull Out before use" This idiot had been flying around for 1 hour pulling the handle in & out from under the panel instead of up & down. All this time he was reporting over the radio that he was pumping like mad but nothing appeared to be happening. Nobody thought to ask him which way he was pumping the bloomin' handle as he was the chief pilot after all. Fortunately he was not hurt.

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I think that "Grasshopper" is a generic term first applied to light aircraft used by the US sevices for spotting/liaison purposes during WWII. There were several examples including Aeronca, Stinson & Taylorcraft types - & of course the ubiquitous Piper Cub.

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Would that disaster be the woman or the prop? A chap I knew at school once cut off a woman's nose with the prop on a control-line model aircraft. The engine was a small diesel about 1.5 cc. She walked straight into it. Props can be dangerous whatever they're fitted to.

Dis...ast...er. 

(Rimshot)

(Leaves quietly....)