My dad drove a gasoline tanker, day trips, for decades & I'd go with him about once a year. While he was loading I'd walk around the terminal just looking at trucks n stuff. Just as I was walking right in front of a cab over truck the driver hit the air starter. What a quick hideous sound, a sudden burst of an air wrench, volume times 5 followed by a big diesel firing up. Never before or since in my 70 years have I been that startled. I was about 8 yo & it felt like in turned me inside out. Never forgot it.
Thought the driver had done something to scare me & when I told dad he explained what that vile apparatus was.
My dad drove a gasoline tanker, day trips, for decades & I'd go with him about once a year. While he was loading I'd walk around the terminal just looking at trucks n stuff. Just as I was walking right in front of a cab over truck the driver hit the air starter. What a quick hideous sound, a sudden burst of an air wrench, volume times 5 followed by a big diesel firing up. Never before or since in my 70 years have I been that startled. I was about 8 yo & it felt like in turned me inside out. Never forgot it.
Thought the driver had done something to scare me & when I told dad he explained what that vile apparatus was.
Air starts don't bother me. Of course I'm used it on aircraft. I'm sure the sound is about the same for a truck. Must say, in 30 years working in the HE field, never seen or heard an air start on a truck. When did they stop using it?
My first exposure to an air starter was about 1976 while working at the Exxon gas station. The transports all had them. It didn't scare me as I was fascinated by anything related to more power. I appreciated them the same as I celebrate a jet fighter in full afterburner.
"I never thought I'd live to see the day that a U.S. president would raise an army to invade his own country." Robert E. Lee
My dad drove a gasoline tanker, day trips, for decades & I'd go with him about once a year. While he was loading I'd walk around the terminal just looking at trucks n stuff. Just as I was walking right in front of a cab over truck the driver hit the air starter. What a quick hideous sound, a sudden burst of an air wrench, volume times 5 followed by a big diesel firing up. Never before or since in my 70 years have I been that startled. I was about 8 yo & it felt like in turned me inside out. Never forgot it.
Thought the driver had done something to scare me & when I told dad he explained what that vile apparatus was.
Air starts don't bother me. Of course I'm used it on aircraft. I'm sure the sound is about the same for a truck. Must say, in 30 years working in the HE field, never seen or heard an air start on a truck. When did they stop using it?
First & last time I ever heard it. About 8 yo & 3 feet away. Yep, startled the hell out of me. Hell, must have been about 1960+. They never caught on I guess. Had it been further away or common, no thing.
Top fuel dragsters firing up about as haunting as it gets & represent about 12,000 HP, but beauty. Just as long as you're expecting it.
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