Cold start: the book should work. Give it fuel, air and an ignition source, it'll run. Any klutz can cold-start a 520/550 -just don't over-prime/flood it.
Hot/warm starts are where life gets a bit more interesting. Speaking broadly, the issue is that fuel entering the engine often vaporises in the fuel lines above the hot cylinders prior to reaching the FCU. You need to purge the lines, replacing the vaporised fuel with clean, cool fuel from your tanks:
· Throttle fully open (in),
· Mixture to idle cut off, (out) and
· Full electric fuel pump for about ten seconds.
This procedure cycles the heated fuel back through the return pipe and replaces it with cool stuff from the tanks. Then set your throttle and mixture as per the AFM, or anything that works. Crank the engine. Once started, it will most likely die after a few seconds, so be ready to catch it with the electric pump briefly. It should run smoothly from there. Do not over-prime as the excess fuel can gather in the bottom of the cowling and catch fire. If there are leaks in the fuel-system, it may happen anyway. These fuel fires can be hard to spot because they don’t make much smoke, so look out for bystanders getting all agitated or check a shadow of the cowling for distortion. If necessary, just keep cranking the engine to suck the flames back inside the induction system. An engine-start is the best solution; it will either suck the flames in or blow them out.
If history is any indicator, you'll get heaps of contradictory advice as the thread grows older... hands flying everywhere in some.
This has worked for me in the past!
Last edited by RadioSaigon; 22nd August 2012 at 14:33.