Originally Posted by
Peacock
I was on a 767 which had an inop APU and the flight crew (thanks, Chan 9) requested permission to start one engine at the gate before push back. I was seated on the right of the aircraft and the huffer cart was on the other side so I couldn't see what they connected up to start the engine. They did have a big fat yellow hose connected to the belly - I assume that was for air conditioning.
So my question is... is the external pneumatic(?) pressure to start the engine fed directly into an inlet on the engine itself or is there a spigot somewhere on the fuselage that is piped to the engines?
The big yellow hose is the air conditioned air being pumped into the aircraft.
The puffer cart air is pumped directly into the air manifold under the belly of the aircraft. We'll normally start the left engine using the puffer cart air. After that one engine is started, we disconnect the air, push back and start up the # 2 engine using a cross-start procedure with # 1 engine air.