Can't put my finger on it, but there is something about this aircraft that really makes me want one.
Other then its a rugges flying tractor, what are its quirks that make it awesome or a flying dud?
Seems to have been around a while..

Probably because NATO named them Hoodlum .... haaa
That machine reminds me of me in the morning ... 2 big smokes before ready to work.

I saw one of those demonstrated around 1980 .... Russia had crop failures and bought lots of wheat from Canada and couldn't pay the bill .... so they wanted to trade helicopters ... sent one over for demos .... no load , minimum fuel , max rotor rpm , no fuselage torque to worry about , pilot pulled full collective pitch and that thing went straight up like a rocket ... pretty impressive.

Trouble was the cold war was still on and no way did our military want to use communist equipment.

They did end up sending a bunch of huge Belarus farm tractors and a few of our big prairie farmers bought them .... they were built like 10 brick shithouses , crude and rugged and strong

One thing about the Soviet helicopters ... strong and reliable and usually more advanced than anyone else.

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Found the double smoker video .... those radial cylinders get lots of oil in them while parked .... once it clears and engines warm up they run pretty sweet .... not sure what the Russians do different but their radials seem much smoother running than ours.

I love the smell of smoke in the morning ......

That's in Hungary and the writing says "cold start up at sunrise"
Hungarians have a shitload of them and selling them dirt cheap.
Strictly agricultural use.
They fly wonderful!!!

All good once they get going eh?!



Here is a Hungarian one for you Nabs

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I would talk to some of the oldtimers who were helli pilots and bush pilots in our far north .... remote camps , no engine preheaters , no electricity ... only an old wood stove in the cookshack.

Everyone had a different method to get things started at -30* ... the helicopters with the Franklin engine they would drain the oil after a days work and set the pail beside the stove to stay warm overnight .... put the spark plugs in a coffee tin on top of the stove.

In the morning the poor mechanic got up 2 hours early .... arranged a tent affair around the engine and sat there with an old fashioned kerosene blowtorch ... then he would signal the other guys who ran out with the warm oil and spark plugs and put them in as fast as they could and then hit the starter.

Some of the radial engine guys would dilute their engine oil with 50% avgas at shutdown .... next morning the oil was still thin enough for the engine to crank ... they claim the avgas would evaporate during warmup and the vapors drawn into the intake from the crankcase breather. Once the oil pressure was back to normal they went flying.

In my younger years my dream was to be a helicopter pilot in the north .... now I am glad as hell I never did.

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Another oldtimer who flew radial bush planes told me why cold radials are a pain to start ... I forget his exact words but something like this ...

Overnight crankcase oil creeps past the rings into the combustion chamber .... thus all the smoke at startup ..... trouble is the oil has coated the spark plugs and they will not fire .... so they crank the engine and prime lots of raw fuel ... which helps wash some of the oil from the plugs .

But the engine is now flooded with fuel .... so they keep cranking without priming and finally one or two plugs dry out a bit and start firing .... that is the first little puffs of smoke we see out the exhaust .... then a bit more prime to get another couple of cylinders firing .

He flew his de Havilland Otter until he was 83 .... mostly fly-in fishing trips .... but he was cheating on his log books and way beyond overhaul time . He dropped a valve ... smucked the Otter into a swamp and hiked 10 miles to a forest ranger tower to radio for help.

Then he retired .... haaaaa

That is exactly right Narnie... plus, a radial has either one or two cylinders facing completely upside down as well as those each side below the center on an angle but still upside down ish... so, the oil (often a total loss system as no sump) fills up the bottom most pistons.... so, when the motor starts cranking... the pistons full of oil weigh alot more than the empty pistons... until the upside down pistons can throw the oil out... as well as the 'leak by' oil as you say, gumming up the plugs.

It takes a few minutes of running (trying too run) to get the oil off the things it shouldn't be on and the oil out of places it shouldn't be either.

The leaking by the rings of the bottom cylinders is also why planes with radial engines, someone turns the prop backwards, before attempting to 'swing the prop'... If too much oil has passed the rings and the cylinder is full of oil... turning the motor the correct way might 'hydraulic' the piston and bend the rod.

Turning the motor backwards a couple of revolutions lets the oil that would hydraulic the motor go back up the exhaust, reducing the potential amount of oil in the bottom cylinders...

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Muz ... good point about turning the prop to avoid a hydraulic

A couple of years ago I realized the top #1 piston and cylinder is much larger than the other 8 .... because it has the huge connecting rod that the other 8 rods are connected to.

I guess that is the only way a radial will work by just having one journal on the crank.

There is also a reason a radial must have an odd number of cylinders ... I dont understand that part ... maybe someone can explain.

Four-stroke radials have an odd number of cylinders per row, so that a consistent every-other-piston firing order can be maintained, providing smooth operation.

K-26 Throttle turns backwards then US. Doesn't like high altitudes or high air temps and yaw is removed with autorotations through a cam -- Ramona helicopter museum had one...

Otherwise a rugged helicopter

How much is cheep?

Well first off, its just pie in the sky dreams to me. I don't have the funds or the training.
But I saw a website somewhere that had them for sale from Hungary for 45k for a running useable one. Also said buy one that flys and they will ship one that doesnt with it for parts!
Man that would be sweet...

I'll go translate and fly it for you.

Hells yea!
Pay me 55,000 dollars and I'll let you translate AND fly it all you want!
Might even let you keep it in Florida and I could take a vacation to learn how to fly it!

Let me think about that deal.
It's really tempting....