The first school the AF sent me through was Spartan School of Aeronautics and they had some of those older birds around for us to work and learn on. Hand spinning a propeller was to me one of the scariest things I ever did and it was made more scary because the guy sitting in the cockpit was another student responsible for working the ignition switch and more important.......holding the brakes on so the airplane diddnt jump forward when the engine started. You could be mincemeat in a hurry if the cockpit man didnt hold those brakes. It made me nnnnnnnnnnervous.