Quote Originally Posted by thevillageinn View Post
What exactly are they spinning up? Something like a flywheel? Or a magneto to charge a capacitor or something?
Inertia starter. The crank spins a heavy flywheel up to a certain rpm, then the pilot throws a lever to connect the flywheel to the engine. It was also used on German tanks at the time. They called it "schwungmasse" or something similar.