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P. 25
Windmilling Airstarts
by Tom Clements
I recently had a conversation with a representative of one of the propeller manufacturers and it became apparent that he had a couple of misconceptions about the behavior of the King Air pro- peller both during in-flight shutdowns and airstarts. That prompted me to wArite this article in an attempt to pro- vide clarification.
s we have discussed in some past articles, the propeller on a PT6 will feather itself after shutdown on the
ramp due to lack of oil pressure. Safety is compromised by doing so, however, since the King Air propellers spin for a much longer time than when we feather them manually ... that long time period of lethally spinning propellers makes it more likely for a passenger or line person to get injured or killed.
The more headwind there is on the ramp, the longer the propellers will spin, being driven by the wind. Well, when we shut an engine down in flight, there is a lot of headwind, right? This does
NOVEMBER 2022
KING AIR MAGAZINE • 23
