CloudDancer
Registered User
L. Ronstadt - J. Ingram Duet
Chapter Seven - Just How DARK is Dark??
Dan opens the small door under the left wing and jumps in to scamper forward into the cockpit with me close on his heels after firmly securing the cabin door behind us. Tired of crawling and twisting among the four or five seats laying haphazardly every which way about the small cabin, I stack them to one side and note that we have all five and the bench seat on the left wall holds two seats as well. As I shoe-horn my lanky 6'2" frame through the narrow “door” and into the right seat of the “cockpit” Dan already has the left engine at a rumbling low idle and the three blades of the right engine are rotating in a jerky manner through each individual compression stroke of the six cylinders of the Lycoming on the right wing. As my seat belt snaps locked a moment later, the right engine finds a couple of consecutive compression strokes it likes for ignition and the number two engines joins into a smooth harmony with it’s partner.
Just for nothing, Dan reaches down and hits the switch for the Janitrol. The fan whines the cold air rushes about the cabin and......nothing else happens.
But, noting that even the cold air blowing through the defrost vents somewhat slows the accrual rate of the internal frosting from our warm breathing Dan decides to leave it run anyway.
Dan asks me to take out my license and scrap the windows clear again and I do; noting that indeed the frost thickness is greatly reduced, the frost almost peeling off the insides of the windows in paper (extremely) thin shavings instead of the heavier type hoarfrost they had earlier inside.
Having decided that he wants to do a full throttle runup for a couple of minutes Dan taxis over to the west end of the ramp well clear of all the other airplanes and firmly locks the brakes.
The thin frost has already rebuilt on the inside of the windows and is thickening, but as we intend to remain static for a few minutes Dan tells me to give the scraping a break for a while and just sit back and hold the toe brakes as a backup to the parking break.
Then, as Dan begins advancing the throttles and the Lycomings dull rumble outside gradually begins shifting to a higher pitched defiant roar....we hear a WHOOOOSH...and almost imMEdiately feel a rush of warm air in our faces! Amazingly...somehow......fuel has now found it’s way through the empty feed line to the combustion chamber of the Janitrol and is blazing merrily away within. Life is getting BETTER as both engines scream in the cold night air, the tips of the propellor blades cutting through the frigid air outside less than a foot or two aft and outboard of my head.
After a full two minutes straining against the brakes at full power the engines haven’t missed so much as a BEAT and everything is looking pretty rosy when I hear Dan holler at me over the roar of the engines.....”Well......As long as she’s running so fine and we are warming up and all......We may as well go FLY, HUH??!!” 8)
And as he pulls the throttles slowly toward close, stopping about 2200 RPM for a quick mag check and to cycle the props,.............the JANITROL loses either fuel or fire or....who KNOWS??!! But the damn thing quit again after only having run for about two minutes and clearing only HALF the forward windscreen. :evil: Within a matter of less than 10 seconds from the time we noticed the heater quit, it is alREADY pumping out icy cold air again. In another minute or two, the inner plexiglass had cooled sufficiently so as to allow the frost to begin coating the inner side of the windows.
The fact that the Janitrol had crapped out on us after running for only a couple of minutes and that the windows were now fully frosted over again on the inside; made up really only a SMALL portion of the total feeling of apprehension brought on by Don’s suggestion that....”we may as well go FLY, Huh??”
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Dan opens the small door under the left wing and jumps in to scamper forward into the cockpit with me close on his heels after firmly securing the cabin door behind us. Tired of crawling and twisting among the four or five seats laying haphazardly every which way about the small cabin, I stack them to one side and note that we have all five and the bench seat on the left wall holds two seats as well. As I shoe-horn my lanky 6'2" frame through the narrow “door” and into the right seat of the “cockpit” Dan already has the left engine at a rumbling low idle and the three blades of the right engine are rotating in a jerky manner through each individual compression stroke of the six cylinders of the Lycoming on the right wing. As my seat belt snaps locked a moment later, the right engine finds a couple of consecutive compression strokes it likes for ignition and the number two engines joins into a smooth harmony with it’s partner.
Just for nothing, Dan reaches down and hits the switch for the Janitrol. The fan whines the cold air rushes about the cabin and......nothing else happens.
But, noting that even the cold air blowing through the defrost vents somewhat slows the accrual rate of the internal frosting from our warm breathing Dan decides to leave it run anyway.Dan asks me to take out my license and scrap the windows clear again and I do; noting that indeed the frost thickness is greatly reduced, the frost almost peeling off the insides of the windows in paper (extremely) thin shavings instead of the heavier type hoarfrost they had earlier inside.
Having decided that he wants to do a full throttle runup for a couple of minutes Dan taxis over to the west end of the ramp well clear of all the other airplanes and firmly locks the brakes.
The thin frost has already rebuilt on the inside of the windows and is thickening, but as we intend to remain static for a few minutes Dan tells me to give the scraping a break for a while and just sit back and hold the toe brakes as a backup to the parking break.
Then, as Dan begins advancing the throttles and the Lycomings dull rumble outside gradually begins shifting to a higher pitched defiant roar....we hear a WHOOOOSH...and almost imMEdiately feel a rush of warm air in our faces! Amazingly...somehow......fuel has now found it’s way through the empty feed line to the combustion chamber of the Janitrol and is blazing merrily away within. Life is getting BETTER as both engines scream in the cold night air, the tips of the propellor blades cutting through the frigid air outside less than a foot or two aft and outboard of my head.
After a full two minutes straining against the brakes at full power the engines haven’t missed so much as a BEAT and everything is looking pretty rosy when I hear Dan holler at me over the roar of the engines.....”Well......As long as she’s running so fine and we are warming up and all......We may as well go FLY, HUH??!!” 8)
And as he pulls the throttles slowly toward close, stopping about 2200 RPM for a quick mag check and to cycle the props,.............the JANITROL loses either fuel or fire or....who KNOWS??!! But the damn thing quit again after only having run for about two minutes and clearing only HALF the forward windscreen. :evil: Within a matter of less than 10 seconds from the time we noticed the heater quit, it is alREADY pumping out icy cold air again. In another minute or two, the inner plexiglass had cooled sufficiently so as to allow the frost to begin coating the inner side of the windows.
The fact that the Janitrol had crapped out on us after running for only a couple of minutes and that the windows were now fully frosted over again on the inside; made up really only a SMALL portion of the total feeling of apprehension brought on by Don’s suggestion that....”we may as well go FLY, Huh??”
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pulse pounding, 
