Ok Static, lets discuss the wisdom or otherwise of these checks.
Safety is the most important issue here. The checks are not unsafe to do, they are recognised checks, in the above cases by maintenance or by crews before air-tests, done at the commanders wish before a flight. They may discover a potentially unsafe condition; that has to be good.
The cockpit preparation scan is very detailed and you will find that most companies have slightly different versions of it. Even the Boeing version has changed over the years, so if you think you are doing the definitive version then check what date your company manuals last had an input from Boeing.
When I was in the RHS I saw that different Captains had their own couple of “extra checks” such as standby power check, wing-body overheat test, EIS LED test, TAT test etc, etc. These were all in addition to and did not replace any checks required by the company. None of these caused me any concern with regard to standardisation as it all came under the umbrella of
“Flight Deck Preparation…………Completed”.
Now that I am in the LHS and have many more thousands of hours, I too have developed my own way of completing the Flight Deck Preparation. It is still well within the bounds of the company SOP’s but is probably subtly different from other Captains, as theirs will be from each others. It is not non-standard or maverick but simply applying a bit of airmanship from my experience to check things to my own satisfaction before getting airborne with passengers.
Rgds
S & L